This is an excerpt from an article by Elura Nanos for the publication “Law and Crime”. The original article in it’s entirety can be found here
A week after finding a prominent civil rights attorney guilty on multiple criminal charges with what was described as a “canned verdict” that was “emblematic” of how Black residents are mistreated by local government, a Mississippi judge reversed his own ruling in a short order riddled with errors.
Jill Collen Jefferson is an attorney, the President of the Civil Rights group JULIAN, a Harvard Law School professor, and a former staffer for both Barack Obama and the late Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga. For years, Jefferson has fought for racial justice in Holmes County, Mississippi — one of the nation’s poorest counties.
In 2022, JULIAN sued the Lexington Police Department on behalf of a group of local residents over the department’s alleged misconduct that included racial profiling, harassment, threats, brutality, and corruption. The department and the town’s government are currently under investigation by the Department of Justice for much the same misconduct.
In June 2023 — just days after the DOJ hosted a session for residents to speak freely about their experiences with police — Jefferson filmed a traffic stop by the same police department, and was promptly arrested Saturday, charged with multiple crimes, and held for several days in a local jail.
Jefferson ultimately stood trial for four misdemeanor charges stemming from the June arrest: unlawful use of a mobile phone while driving; obstruction of a public roadway; failure to comply; and resisting arrest. Her attorneys presented evidence that included Jefferson’s testimony as well as her video recordings. Holmes County Justice Court Judge Marcus Fisher presided over the bench trial, acting both as judge and as fact-finder.
Although the charge of unlawful mobile phone use was dropped at the conclusion of the trial, Jefferson was found guilty of the other three charges and fines were assessed against her as a penalty. In an email to Law&Crime Wednesday, Jefferson’s attorney, Michael Carr, said that the conviction, which Fisher read aloud in open court after the trial, “appeared to be a pre-prepared script.” Carr also noted that Jefferson’s testimony and evidence presented at trial directly contradicted the narrative presented by the Lexington Police Department.
Carr went on to say that as Jefferson’s legal team prepared her appeal, anomalies arose immediately. To file an appeal, the judgment of conviction must be submitted to the Circuit Court. However, Carr said that the justice court clerk advised him that although an entire week had passed since Jefferson was pronounced guilty, Fisher had not turned in his orders of conviction to file with the court.
On the same day that Carr asked for the conviction order, he received a different order signed by Fisher: one that rescinded the oral pronouncement of conviction and found Jefferson not guilty on all charges.
The unanticipated reversal was shocking.
“In 18 years of defense practice, I have never seen this happen – a judge reversing himself within days after an oral pronouncement of guilt at court and assessing fees and fines at that moment,” said Carr.
Fisher’s brief order, which contains multiple errors but no explanatory information as to the reasons underlying the unusual decision, can be seen below.
