The Mississippi attorney general’s office is calling on the state’s supreme court to set the execution dates for two inmates currently sitting on death row.
On Thursday, Attorney General Lynn Fitch urged the high court to schedule a date and time for 55-year-old Willie Jerome Manning and 59-year-old Robert Simon, Jr., to be killed under their death penalty sentences.
Willie Jerome Manning
Willie “Fly” Manning was convicted of the murders of two Mississippi State University students, Jon Steckler and Tiffany Miller, in 1994.
The Mississippi State Supreme Court in August 2022 denied an appeal from Manning who is sitting on death row after being found guilty of two counts of capital murder.
The death row inmate had also been involved in another double-murder case involving the killing of 90-year-old Emmoline Jimmerson and her 60-year-old daughter, Albertha Jordan, in their Starkville apartment. Manning’s charges were dropped after the Mississippi Supreme Court discovered that prosecutors had hidden evidence of a key witness lying.
Days before his scheduled execution in May 2013, the U.S. Justice Department and the FBI found that faulty DNA evidence had been used to convict Manning of the capital murder charges.
Manning then filed an appeal requesting for his DNA samples to be tested at a different lab than the one the FBI had used.
Despite Manning’s request, the Mississippi Supreme Court believed it had enough evidence to deny the appeal by using DNA evidence and fingerprint analysis from one of Manning’s previous rulings.
The filing was submitted just days before the U.S. Supreme Court denied a request from Manning to have evidence in his case tested at a specialized DNA laboratory.
While Manning has maintained his innocence, Fitch has requested for the high court to dismiss a second post-conviction relief motion filed by the inmate’s legal counsel and schedule a date for his death.
Robert Simon, Jr.
Robert Simon, Jr., was arrested on February 3, 1990, in Clarksdale for the murders of Carl, Bobbie Joe, Charlotte, and Gregory Parker.
Smith alongside Anthony Carr were reported to have broken into a Quitman County home, raped and murdered the nine-year-old girl before killing her parents and 12-year-old brother and setting the home on fire.
Simon, just under two weeks before his May 24, 2011 execution date, attempted to avoid the death penalty by claiming that he had suffered a fall and had hit his head, resulting in memory loss.
A federal appeals court initially granted a motion to stay Simon’s execution because prison officials did not allow doctors hired by the inmate’s lawyers to interview him and rule on his mental competency.
A federal judge later ruled that Simon had been faking amnesia and overturned the motion to halt his execution.
Over 33 years later, the state’s attorney is pushing for the Mississippi Supreme Court to set an official date for Simon’s death. Carr, Simon’s criminal cohort, remains on death row.
