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In this edition, the long musical legacy of a brutal prison continues. The candidate field is also complete for a special election to select the next prosecutor in Hinds County. – Daja E. Henry and Caleb Bedillion
Mississippi lifers find meaning in music
At the third stop on their spring tour, seven incarcerated men felt free, if only for a few hours.
The Parchman Band performed alongside country singer Charlie Worsham at the Grammy Museum Mississippi. They took the stage in their green-and-white stripes, indelible reminders of their biggest mistakes, in front of a crowd of more than 100 people.
On that spring night at the museum, the band played its way through a full spectrum of emotions, from slow ballads serenading women they love, to electrifying originals that talked of wild times before prison.
The band is the latest incarnation of a musical tradition at a prison known for its brutality. A band existed at Parchman as early as the 1930s. Now, band members say, they are torchbearers of a long, musical legacy.
Read the story, and the latest edition of Redemption Songs, which spotlights the band’s performance of Chris Stapleton’s “Tennessee Whiskey.”
Candidates finalized in special election to select new Hinds County prosecutor
A new leader will take the helm at the Hinds County District Attorney’s Office following a Nov. 3 special election, after Jody Owens, the former district attorney, pleaded guilty in a federal bribery case this summer and resigned from the office. With the qualifying period now closed, five candidates have filed to serve out the remaining term.
The candidates are Gwen Agho, Greta Mack Harris, Darla Palmer, Marvin L. Sanders and Wendy Wilson White. Interim District Attorney Brad McCullouch is not seeking the office.
Agho and White are both assistant district attorneys in Hinds County and both candidates are taking leave from their jobs to campaign. White previously ran for circuit judge in Hinds County.
Harris and Sanders both previously worked as assistant prosecutors in Hinds County, among other legal experience.
Palmer is a defense attorney who has run twice for the district attorney position.
Whoever wins the special election will complete the rest of the current term, which runs through January 2028. Voters will again select a district attorney in normally scheduled elections next year for a four-year term that will begin in 2028.
A new district attorney will take the helm of the office amid challenges that include ongoing federal scrutiny of the Raymond Detention Center, where many people charged with crimes in Hinds County are detained.
McCullouch, the interim district attorney, recently told a federal judge during a hearing that there may be opportunities to move some cases forward more quickly. Overcrowding has been a persistent problem at the county jail, driven in part by long delays. Some officials have also complained that indictments, which are completely under the purview of the prosecutor’s office, often take too long to be filed.
McCullouch also recently invited the state auditor to scrutinize the financial records of the district attorney’s office. The office holds a patchwork of bank accounts, some of which McCullouch did not even know about before he took over as interim prosecutor.
Also in the news
Senate corrections chair resigns. State Sen. Juan Barnett, a Democrat from Heidelberg, resigned from the state legislature on Aug. 31, according to a statement by Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann. WLBT
Kiln man, 34, detained by ICE. Heriberto “Eddie” Reyes-Ochoa entered the U.S. in 2006. He was picked up after a fender bender, detained in the Hancock County jail on an immigration hold and transferred to the Adams County Correctional Center, a large immigration detention facility in Natchez. His wife, who is pregnant, said he was close to obtaining a green card. Mississippi Free Press
Nolan Wells’ death reveals weaknesses in the state’s coroner system. In Mississippi, coroners are elected officials who are only required to have a high-school diploma and take a 40-hour course. Instead of forensic pathologists, coroners often make the first public determinations about deaths in Mississippi. A news report by the Mississippi Independent explores the faults in this system and the shortage of qualified forensic pathologists nationwide. The Mississippi Independent
Senatobia police chief fired. The city’s Board of Aldermen voted to fire Senatobia Police Chief Harold Vanderford after Mississippi Today revealed text messages in which he routinely used racial slurs to refer to Black people. The discovery comes in the wake of a police shooting that killed 1-year-old Kohen Wiley. For years, residents of the area have complained about discriminatory and overzealous policing. Mississippi Today
Arrested for allegedly stealing incarcerated people’s identities. Four people were arrested and accused of using the stolen identities of people incarcerated in Mississippi prisons. The arrests are part of the State Auditor’s Office’s Operation Payback, an effort to recover money from fraudulent unemployment claims. WLBT
