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A lawsuit has been filed over jail death records in Hinds County, and an oversight bill for state prison deaths has failed to advance in the Legislature. Also, incarcerated voters in the state could soon face more obstacles.
— Caleb Bedillion and Daja E. Henry
Lawsuit targets Hinds County over jail death records
The Southern Poverty Law Center is suing the Hinds County Sheriff’s Office and the Mississippi Department of Public Safety for failure to provide information on deaths in Hinds County’s Raymond Detention Center. The lawsuit, filed in Hinds County Chancery Court, alleges that the sheriff’s office failed to respond to the advocacy group’s records requests for nearly a year.
The Mississippi Public Records Act allows a maximum of 14 working days for a public agency to provide requested records.
“The public has a right to know the extent to which deaths are occurring in the Hinds County detention facility and why,” said Andrea Alajbegovic, SPLC senior staff attorney, in a March statement.
At least eight people incarcerated there died in 2025, according to records obtained by The Marshall Project - Jackson.
The detention facility is at the center of a yearslong legal battle, which resulted in the appointment of a federal receiver to take control of the jail because of abusive conditions and civil rights violations.
Records of deaths at the facility have appeared scattered through thousands of pages of court documents, news stories, coroner’s reports and Department of Public Safety data. The state is required by the Death in Custody Reporting Act, a federal law, to collect data on deaths in jails, prisons and law enforcement custody across the state and report that information quarterly to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics.
However, an investigation by The Marshall Project - Jackson found that Mississippi has long failed to count and report deaths in the state’s local jails.
State Senate passes on having more scrutiny for prison deaths
A proposal to strengthen oversight of deaths inside state prisons failed to advance past a key deadline day in the state legislature.
House Bill 1739, filed by Rep. Becky Currie, would have created the Corrections Overview Task Force to review unexpected deaths and release a public report with recommendations to prevent future deaths. Currie is a Republican who chairs the House Corrections Committee.
Currie filed the bill in response to an investigation into prison homicides by The Marshall Project - Jackson, Mississippi Today, Clarion Ledger, Hattiesburg American and The Mississippi Link. The investigation found that nearly 50 people had been killed in Mississippi prisons between 2015 and 2025. Eight of those cases led to criminal convictions. Investigations were often scant, and victims’ families were often left without answers.
The bill passed the state House, but did not come up for a vote in the Senate before the March 11 deadline.
SCOTUS ruling on late-arriving ballots could affect incarcerated voters
The U.S. Supreme Court last week heard arguments over absentee ballots in Mississippi, which allows mailed ballots postmarked by election day to arrive up to five business days later and still be counted. The case is being closely watched nationally for how it might reshape voting laws across the country ahead of midterm elections.
But closer to home in Mississippi, an overlooked population could bear the brunt if Mississippi’s law falls: incarcerated voters.
Mississippi imposes a lifetime voting ban on some people convicted of felony crimes — but it also allows many other people with criminal convictions to keep voting, even from prison.
However, the barriers are significant.
To vote from prison, a person must mail a letter requesting an absentee ballot application to the circuit clerk of the county of their last residence. After the ballot application arrives, they must complete it and most people must have it notarized. They must then mail the application back to the circuit clerk.
If the clerk approves the application, an absentee ballot is then mailed back to the person inside prison. They must complete the ballot, have it notarized as well and mail it back.
The deadlines are tight, especially as the Postal Service also continues to experience slowdowns and Mississippi’s prison mailrooms are clogged.
If the deadline for receipt of a ballot moves earlier by five working days, it will be even harder for people in prison to complete the cumbersome voting process, said civil rights attorney Paloma Wu, who has led voter education efforts inside Mississippi prisons.
“Having a receipt window of an additional five days, that makes a difference,” said Wu.
During oral arguments last week, some of the court’s conservative justices looked poised to rule that ballots cannot be counted if they arrive after election day.
Also in the news
“The judge didn’t handle this the way it should have been handled.” The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday heard the appeal of a man on Mississippi’s Death Row who argues that jury selection in his trial was tainted by racial bias. The case comes seven years after the nation’s high court overturned the death sentence and conviction of a different Mississippi man, Curtis Flowers, finding biased jury selection in his case. The two cases share a familiar cast of characters, including the same prosecutor and trial judge. Associated Press
Control of the court. Last year, a federal district court judge ruled that voting districts used to elect justices to the Mississippi Supreme Court illegally dilute Black voting power. Judge Sharion Aycock gave lawmakers an opportunity to draw a new voting map, but the Legislature is now set to gavel out without doing so. That means Aycock could select a new map herself. Mississippi Today TMP context: The U.S. Supreme Court will rule by June on a case that could reshape voting rights law and undermine Black political power in Mississippi and elsewhere. The Marshall Project. More: With no new map yet, elections to the high court scheduled for this fall are on hold and a sitting judge is in limbo. Mississippi Today.
Funding public defense. For a second year, state money will flow to public defense in one of Mississippi’s most rural court districts. Local counties and courts in the state bear almost the entire burden of funding and managing public defense in Mississippi. Reformers hope the state-funded pilot program will show how additional resources, especially at the very beginning of a case, can resolve cases faster and reduce unnecessary incarceration. TMP context: “The practice of early representation really doesn’t happen anywhere in Mississippi.” The Marshall Project
Delta officers plead guilty. A fifth Mississippi Delta law enforcement officer has pleaded guilty in a federal drug trafficking case. Javery Howard, a former Hollandale police officer, was arrested in October 2025 alongside former sheriffs, a sheriff’s deputy and other law enforcement officers, and charged in relation to a conspiracy to aid and abet the transport and distribution of roughly 55 pounds of cocaine on multiple runs, according to the FBI. Mississippi Today
Quick facts on Adams County’s immigration detention center. Mississippi is home to one of the nation’s largest immigration detention centers, Adams County Correctional Facility, a private prison run by CoreCivic. Mississippi Today
DiBiase acquitted. Retired WWE pro wrestler Ted DiBiase Jr. was acquitted of 13 federal charges related to the state’s welfare scandal. DiBiase accepted more than $3 million in federal funds designated to help low-income residents. Seven others have pleaded guilty to state or federal charges related to the scandal. MPB
Former Laurel police officer indicted in shooting. A grand jury indicted former Sergeant Jacob Giangrosso on one charge of aggravated assault connected to an October 2023 shooting of a minor in Laurel. Giangrosso pleaded not guilty. WDAM
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