JACKSON – A convicted capital murderer who has been on death row for nearly three decades is asking the state’s highest court to rehear his latest appeal, an appeal that the Mississippi Supreme Court rejected in a split vote in September.
Willie Jerome Manning, 56, argues that the denial of his post-conviction relief failed to consider witness recantations as new evidence that should be grounds for a new trial, or at least a new evidentiary hearing. Since the September 16 ruling passed by a slim 5-4 margin, Manning has been hoping to get one of the majority justices to switch sides.
In the five-page dissent, the minority argued that the court overstepped its bounds by saying the retracted testimony would not have affected Manning’s trial in court. They argued that the lower court should hold an evidentiary hearing.
One of the prosecution’s key witnesses has now come forward and said Manning never confessed to the crime while they were both incarcerated in the Oktibbeha County Jail. He said he was coerced by the then-sheriff in exchange for favorable treatment in his ongoing lawsuit. The witness is said to have recanted his statement to a private investigator more than ten years ago, but refused to sign an affidavit until 2023.
Manning’s defense team argues that not only should the new evidence be allowed, but that the use of unreliable and/or false evidence and unscientific evidence places this case in “an unfortunate pattern of wrongful convictions emanating from one judicial district in Mississippi.”
Six people convicted of capital murder during District Attorney Forrest Allgood’s tenure in the 16th Circuit Judicial District have been exonerated. In a seventh case, a federal court vacated a death sentence when it was discovered that prosecutors had knowingly given false testimony during the penalty phase of the trial.
“These numerous wrongful convictions arising from the same judicial district and same prosecutor fit a template: flawed and spurious forensic investigation and/or official misconduct,” the motion for rehearing said. “Manning’s current case follows that template. Rehearsals have their place here.”
Prosecutors responded to the request for a rehearing with a simple two-paragraph response, noting that Manning raised the same issues the court had already denied.
Manning was convicted in November 1994 in Oktibbeha County of two counts of capital murder for the deaths of Mississippi State University students Tiffany Miller, 22, and Jon Steckler, 19, who were kidnapped in December 1992 and found dead the next day. Both were shot. Steckler had been run over. Miller may have been sexually assaulted.
If the Supreme Court denies the request for a new hearing, it will consider a separate request from Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch asking the Supreme Court to set an execution date. The Supreme Court halted that request in November 2023 to consider Manning’s PCR motion first.
In proposing to set the execution date, Fitch said “no legal obstacle exists” and since Manning “has exhausted all state and federal remedies, this court should set an execution date.”
It is not known when the Supreme Court will hear this request.
Manning was scheduled to be executed in May 2013. The Mississippi Supreme Court granted a stay just hours before the execution so the defense could explore new DNA testing and additional fingerprint comparisons.
Mississippi resumed executions three years ago after a nearly decade-long hiatus. David Neal Cox died in November 2021 by lethal injection at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman. Just over a year later, Thomas Eddie Loden was executed in December 2022.
