Mississippi

Madison Co. man who killed 13-year-old boy loses another round in Mississippi Supreme Court

Published

21 hours ago

August 10, 2024

Madison Co. man who killed 13-year-old boy loses another round in Mississippi Supreme Court

JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) – The state’s highest court has denied a death row inmate’s request for discovery to determine whether his attorney failed him during the jury selection process.

On Thursday, the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled that Tony Terrell Clark’s petition to appeal a lower court’s order denying discovery should be upheld.

Clark, who was sentenced to death in 2018 for killing a 13-year-old boy working at his father’s convenience store, argued his attorney failed to provide the court proof that several Black jurors had been improperly dismissed from his case, while several white jurors were allowed to remain.

The Mississippi Court of Appeals rejected Clark’s motion for discovery seeking documentation to back up his claims.

In a one-page order, the Supreme Court rejected his petition to appeal that decision.

It’s a ruling that Justice Leslie King decried in a seven-page response.

“This court consistently finds that defendants have not proved pretext when the state strikes Black jurors,” he wrote. “This court now hinders a defendant’s attempt to prove pretext. It seems to demand that defense counsel go above and beyond, and read the collective mind of the state’s prosecutors in order to show pretext, but when a defendant attempts to conduct a thorough investigation to meet this court’s impossibly high standards of proof… this court denies him the opportunity.”

Clark argues that three Black jurors were dismissed because the state alleged that they shared the same last names as others who had been arrested and convicted in Madison County.

However, Clark alleges that several white jurors also shared names with “people prominent in the Madison County criminal justice system,” but no list proving that was ever provided.

He claims that his attorney should have sought that information during the voir dire, but the attorney did not.

King wrote that appellate procedure rules allow for discovery in death penalty post-conviction proceedings to gather information that could support applying for relief.

“Notably, the petitioner need not prove to any certain degree that the discretionary discovery will render his petition for post-conviction relief successful; he [needs] only show that it is ‘likely’ to be ‘helpful’ in the ‘investigation, preparation, and presentation’ of the issues,” King wrote. “Thus, if it is ‘likely’ to be ‘helpful’ merely in furthering better investigation, it should be granted.”

King goes on to say that this is Clark’s first petition for post-conviction relief, and he likely would lose additional discovery rights on future PCRs.

“Thus, this is likely his only substantive bite at this apple,” he wrote.

King was joined by Justice Jim Kitchens.

The majority order was written by Justice Dawn Beam. She was joined by Justices Michael Randolph, Josiah Coleman, James Maxwell, Robert Chamberlin, David Ishee, and Kenneth Griffis.

The ruling comes about a year after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear his appeal, arguing that Clark’s sentence should be vacated and replaced with life without parole after the state unfairly disqualified potential Black jurors.

The jury had 11 white members, one Black member, and two white alternates.

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Mississippi

Mississippi Native Shelby McEwen Takes Home Silver in the Olympic High Jump

Published

7 hours ago

August 10, 2024

Press Room

Mississippi Native Shelby McEwen Takes Home Silver in the Olympic High Jump

MERIDIAN, Miss. (WTOK) – Shelby McEwen will be taking home the silver medal from the Olympic High Jump in Paris at this year’s 2024 Summer Games.

The silver medal came after a jump-off between New Zealand’s Hamish Kerr.

The two could not clear 2.38 meters so they lowered the bar. the bar was lowered to 2.36 meters and still neither cleared the crossbar. Finally, it was lowered to 3.34. McEwen went first and missed, but Kerr was able to clear it, taking home the gold.

The American High Jumper was on the Track and Field team at the University of Alabama and is a Mississippi native, from Abbeville. This will add another medal to the United States count making it 119.

Congratulations to Shelby on this amazing accomplishment.

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Mississippi

Largest MS Bat Working Group nets dozen bats in Adams County, surrounding area – Mississippi's Best Community Newspaper

Published

14 hours ago

August 10, 2024

Press Room

Largest MS Bat Working Group nets dozen bats in Adams County, surrounding area

Published 10:00 am Saturday, August 10, 2024

NATCHEZ — The largest group of bat surveyors in Mississippi’s Bat Working Group in 21 years recently paid a visit to Adams County and the surrounding area to document, learn and share information about the various bat species living here.

The 21st annual event brought 50 participants here on July 25 and 26 from eight states and featured a training focused on the identification of Mississippi’s bat species and guidance on listed species and the survey guidelines provided by the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

The first night, nets were set up on the Natchez Trace Parkway and Canemount Wildlife Management Area in Port Gibson. On night two, surveyors netted at the Homochitto National Forest and participants toured St. Catherine’s Creek National Wildlife Refuge, visiting artificial roosts with Rafinesque’s big-eared bats and birding around the refuge’s wetlands.

Participants also took a field trip to a culvert roost in Claiborne County, north of Natchez, to see over a dozen northern long-eared bats.

Bats have an unfortunate un-earned bad reputation for carrying rabies, which is carried in less than 1 percent of the population but is “a serious, fatal disease so you definitely don’t want to pick them up,” said Alison McCartney of the U.S. Department of Wildlife Fisheries and Parks and Chair of Mississippi Bat Working Group.

But a large surveying team recently visited Adams County and the surrounding area to learn and educate people on the various species and learn the helpful benefits of having them.

“People are just now beginning to realize the benefits,” McCartney said. “All Mississippi bats are insectivores and eat mosquitoes and agricultural pests. Organic farmers will sometimes put up bat houses to attract bats as a natural pesticide. Vampire bats in Texas have an anticoagulant protein in their saliva used in medicine to help heart and stroke patients. Fruit-eating bats in Asia and Australia act as seed dispersers and help to reforest. Their diet alone provides a lot of benefits to us.”

This year brought a diverse team to Natchez that included private organizations, consultants, government agencies and a few students interested in learning about bats.

“It’s the biggest event that we’ve had in the 21 years we’ve been doing it and the most states represented. We were able to visit 11 sites in two nights, which would take a lot longer without a group as big,” McCartney said.

The surveying lasted from around 6 p.m. to midnight each night. “It wasn’t quite as fruitful as we were hoping” but not a total loss either, McCartney said.

The group managed to capture four red bats and five evening bats — both of which are common species here — as well as one Seminole bat, one big brown bat and one tri-colored bat for a total of 12 captured. All were released safely and unharmed.

The tri-colored bat is proposed for federal listing as endangered, McCartney said.

“The more information we can get on all bat species, the better we can protect them and educate others about them,” McCartney said. “The main goal of these events is to create and outreach educational opportunity and also to collect data. … We invited everyone to come, including folks new to bat work, as a teaching opportunity.”

The Bat Working Group visits a different part of the state every year but were particularly interested in surveying the Natchez-Adams County area this year because of the possibility of finding a northern long-eared bat, which was recently listed as endangered because of the deadly white-nose syndrome.

While native to the northeastern United States, these bats were documented further south and thought to be migrating here, which could hypothetically give them a better chance of survival with a shorter hibernation period than their northern relatives.

“White-nose syndrome has decimated populations in cold climates where they go into true hibernation,” McCartney said. “There has been a 99 percent decline.”

While they didn’t find or document any northern long-ear roosts this time, more of these bats were documented in last year with extensive surveying efforts, McCartney said.

“From the 1930s to last August, we only had three records. Last August, we found two new roosts. We started doing intensive survey efforts around that area and came up with 32 new records.”

McCartney encouraged anyone interested to participate in future bat surveying and conservation efforts of the Mississippi Bat Working Group.

“You don’’ have to be a bat person to get involved,” she said, adding anyone interested can contact the MDWFP Jackson Field office at 601-432-2400 or email msbats@hotmail.com.

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