Mississippi
Mississippi prosecutors call attorney general’s request to overturn a conviction ‘unprecedented’
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The prosecutor’s office in Mississippi’s largest county says the state’s attorney general made a politically motivated decision to ask an appeals court to overturn the conviction of a former police officer in the 2019 beating death of a man who was pulled from a vehicle and subdued by three officers.
The Hinds County District Attorney’s office issued a statement Wednesday criticizing Attorney General Lynn Fitch for taking an “unprecedented” step of opposing a jury verdict, WJTV reported.
“It is the Attorney General’s job to defend this verdict,” the statement said. “If the Court of Appeals wishes to overturn the verdict, that is their job, not hers.”
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In an email, a spokesperson for Fitch said the attorney general believes there is legal precedent to support overturning the conviction.
Last August, a Hinds County jury convicted former Jackson detective Anthony Fox of culpable negligence manslaughter in the 2019 beating death of 62-year-old George Robinson. News outlets reported Fox was accused of pulling Robinson from a car and striking him in the head and chest as police were searching for a murder suspect. Hinds County Coroner Sharon Grisham-Stewart ruled the death a homicide by blunt-force trauma.
Circuit Judge Adrienne Wooten sentenced Fox, 38, to five years in prison — a 20-year sentence with 15 years suspended. He is in the Madison County Jail, according to Mississippi Department of Corrections records.
In papers filed Monday with the appeals court, Fitch argued that prosecutors failed to prove the core element of culpable negligence manslaughter, which is “wanton disregard of, or utter indifference to, the safety of human life.”
Robinson received “a small, superficial abrasion on his forehead” but had no other visible injuries from the struggle, Fitch wrote. Robinson, who had health problems and was on medication, had a seizure hours later and died two days after that from bleeding in his brain.
The Hinds County District Attorney’s Office said it could find no other case in which the attorney general, who represents the state in criminal appeals, took such a position. The statement also says several law enforcement agencies issued prepared statements within minutes of Fitch filing the brief on Monday, indicating the statements “could only have been coordinated at the request of the Attorney General.”
“The Attorney General’s job is to make the best possible argument for the State of Mississippi,” the district attorney’s office wrote. “It is a critical part of the adversarial process. It is not her job to assist or represent the interests of a criminal defendant convicted by a jury of his peers.”