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As the special election for Hinds County’s district attorney approaches, the conditions at Raymond Detention Center and the backlog of unindicted cases, which result in people languishing there, have taken center stage. In this issue, we explore how the candidates plan to address those issues. Plus, an update on the receivership governing RDC.
– Caleb Bedillion and Daja E. Henry
Hundreds jailed by Hinds County waiting for charges from district attorney
When someone is arrested and charged with a felony, that’s only the beginning of a case. To move forward, a prosecutor in Mississippi must secure an indictment from a grand jury.
But in Hinds County, that sometimes takes a long time. As of June 30, there were 287 people in jail in Hinds County who had not been indicted, The Marshall Project found in an investigation we published this week. That amounted to nearly half of everyone who had been in jail for at least 30 days on felony charges. Nearly 200 of those people had been stuck in jail for more than 90 days without an indictment, including 56 who had been detained for a year or more.
One man, Carson Sands, has been jailed by Hinds County for almost a year on a $300,000 bond. There has been almost no activity in his case since Capitol Police first charged him for an alleged gas station robbery.
Brad McCullouch, the interim district attorney for Hinds County, told The Marshall Project his office had no records on the case. Police turned the file over to the prosecutor’s office the next day, according to a spokesperson for Capitol Police.
McCullouch took office in July on an interim basis after the resignation of Jody Owens, a second-term Democrat who pleaded guilty to federal charges involving a bribery scheme. In an interview with The Marshall Project, he was critical of how delays by police and prosecutors have left people stranded behind bars in legal limbo.
“This is not what we do as a country,” he said. “It’s not based on constitutional principles.”
Local officials, including prosecutors, judges and defense attorneys, have argued about case backlogs and the reliability of justice system data in Hinds County for years. The Marshall Project’s count of unindicted cases on a single day of custody is the first of its kind to be publicly reported.
Five candidates vie over prosecutor’s post
Five candidates who hope to be the county’s next district attorney are running in a nonpartisan special election next week.
Conditions at the Raymond Detention Center, Hinds County’s local jail, as well as the backlog of cases without an indictment, have loomed over the race. The candidates generally agree that big changes are needed, but specifics differ. Brad McCullouch, the interim district attorney, has touted his efforts to identify people who aren’t indicted yet who can be released from jail — nearly 80 so far. McCullouch can’t run for the office because he lives outside the county and will be replaced by one of the special election candidates before the end of the year.
The Marshall Project questioned the candidates about how they would tackle these issues.
The candidates are:
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Gwen Agho, an assistant district attorney in Hinds County. Her campaign has stressed the problem of case backlogs and slow indictments, and Agho says she has the experience within the office necessary to solve the problem.
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Greta Mack Harris, an assistant prosecutor in a neighboring area. She used to work in the Hinds County District Attorney’s Office. Mack Harris said she would not allow people to sit for long periods without an indictment and this issue would be a major priority during her first three months in office.
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Marvin Sanders, a private defense attorney who previously worked in the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office and the Hinds County District Attorney’s Office. He said cases need to be indicted quickly and that he would move for the dismissal of cases that are weak, rather than letting them sit.
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Darla Palmer, a private defense attorney who has run twice before to be the top prosecutor in Hinds County. Her campaign has focused heavily on violent crime, but Palmer has said that people should not sit in jail for long periods without an indictment and that many of the delayed cases are taking resources from more important matters.
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Wendy Wilson White is an assistant district attorney in Hinds County who currently helps run the grand jury process. She has previous prosecution experience for the city of Jackson and worked for a stint at the Mississippi Department of Human Services. Her campaign has focused on mental health and youth issues. She said she would continue to pursue the policies put in place under McCullouch to ease the jail population.
If no candidate captures a majority of the vote next week, a runoff will follow on Dec. 1.
Hinds County jail receiver disputes budget
A year into his appointment as receiver of Hinds County’s Raymond Detention Center, disagreements over the county’s budget process brought Wendell M. France Sr. and the county’s attorneys back in front of a federal judge on Oct. 20.
France asked for the hearing after he said the county did not follow the proper steps to negotiate his budget before the Sept. 15 deadline. Nick Morisani, an attorney representing the county in the suit, disputed that claim, stating that the county “intended to comply, and did just that.”
Earlier this year, France proposed a budget of $24 million. This would include a 14% salary raise for detention officers, hiring more staff, and renovations to reopen the jail’s A-Pod, which would expand the jail’s capacity. A-Pod was shut down in 2023, after it was deemed too dangerous to hold people there. The county approved a budget of $9.4 million without further discussion.
Throughout the hearing, significant questions remained around the county’s budget process, the powers the federal judge has to hold the county accountable, when the new jail being built in south Jackson would open, and how it will operate.
Though France’s reports have not been brought before a public hearing, Judge Carlton Reeves alluded to danger still plaguing the facility and added that it is in the public’s interest to know what is going on in the jail.
“We’ve all walked in the entire RDC, and I’m not sure if anybody needs to be in RDC, period, right now,” Reeves said. “Persons in their custody deserve to be held in a place where their constitutional rights are being protected.”
At the time of the October hearing, the facility was understaffed and overcrowded. That day, France said there were 503 people at the jail, about 100 more people than it is equipped to hold. This summer, 18-year-old Mielun Butler was beaten and stomped to death in the detention center.
It is unclear when the new detention center will open to replace RDC. Projections vary from December to early spring for completion of the first phase of construction, said Rayford Chambers, another attorney for the county. In the first phase, it will hold about 140 detainees, though the county could not say how it would staff the new facility.
Another hearing is scheduled for Nov. 23 to discuss the conditions documented in the receiver’s six-month report. At the time of the hearing, the receiver’s one-year report had also been filed and was under review.
Also in the news
Senatobia officer resigns. Hunter Foster, the Senatobia police officer who fatally shot 1-year-old Kohen Wiley this summer, resigned earlier this month. Foster’s resignation was announced after the Mississippi Department of Public Safety released video footage of the shooting. Attorney General Lynn Fitch ruled the use of force justified. MPB
Hinds County judge blocks AG’s attempt to end case against former Capitol Police officer. After a jury deadlocked on a manslaughter charge for former Capitol Police Officer Michael Rhinewalt, Attorney General Lynn Fitch announced her office would not seek to retry the case. Hinds County Circuit Court Judge Faye Peterson, who presided over the case, said otherwise. In a court order denying the prosecution’s motion to dismiss, Peterson wrote that Fitch’s office is “abandoning its duty … due to a bias in preference of law enforcement rather than upholding the oath of office to pursue prosecutions of cases without bias, sympathy, or prejudice.” Peterson has not yet ruled on the state’s subsequent motion to remand Rhinewalt’s case, which would mean another prosecutor could pursue a conviction in the future. Rhinewalt’s charge stems from the 2022 police shooting of 25-year-old Jaylen Lewis. Mississippi Today
ICE detainees not entitled to bond hearings. In a 10-7 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled this month that immigrants detained by ICE are not entitled to bond hearings. They can be held in detention indefinitely. The ruling contends that people in immigration detention do not have a constitutional right to due process. Mississippi Today
Former JPD officers to stand trial in Taser death. Three former Jackson Police Department officers are set to stand trial in June 2027 for the in-custody death of Keith Murriel. Court documents say the officers tased Murriel more than 80 times before placing him facedown in handcuffs in a patrol car on New Year’s Eve in 2022. Kenya McCarty and Avery Willis face second-degree murder charges, and James Land faces a manslaughter charge. WLBT