The Mississippi Supreme Court has denied the latest appeal for post-conviction relief by the death row inmate accused of killing a pair of Mississippi State University students in 1992.
Willie Jerome Manning, 56, was convicted of capital murder in 1994 in connection with the deaths of Jon Steckler and Tiffany Miller. Attorneys representing the inmate, who has spent the majority of his life behind bars, have routinely attempted to appeal the conviction with the latest argument hinged on a witness who has since recanted his testimony against Manning and “newly discovered firearms evidence.”
Earl Jordan, Manning’s cousin who once served a prison sentence alongside Manning, notified law enforcement that Manning had confessed to murdering the Mississippi State students in December 1992. Jordan ultimately recanted that testimony in 2023 and stated that he fabricated the story to have his own sentence reduced.
While the gun used to kill Steckler and Miller has yet to be found, Manning’s attorneys claimed that “newly discovered and developed firearms identification evidence” had emerged, though the high court argued that documents submitted offered neither new nor recently discovered evidence.
In turn, the state supreme court, in a 5-4 vote, ruled against Manning’s appeal.
“Petitioner has had more than a full measure of justice. Tiffany Miller and Jon Steckler have not. Their families have not. The citizens of Mississippi have not,” a portion of the majority opinion written by Justice Michael Randolph reads.
“It is, therefore, ordered that Willie Jerome Manning is denied leave to proceed in the circuit court with his claim of newly discovered evidence based on Earl Jordan’s recantation. It is further ordered that all other claims for relief set forth in Willie Jerome Manning’s motion for leave to file successive petitions for post-conviction relief are denied.”
Steckler and Miller were reportedly shot and dumped in rural Oktibbeha County where they were left for dead. Steckler was found barely alive on Pat Station Road. His injuries appeared to come as a result of being shot and run over by a vehicle operating at a low speed. He later died while en route to the hospital.
Miller, on the other hand, was found deceased in a nearby wooded area near Steckler’s body. She had been beaten, shot twice in the face, and police believe she was raped. Manning was arrested for the pair’s death after attempting to sell items belonging to the victims. It did not take long for a jury to convict him of capital murder.
The death row inmate had also been the subject of another double-murder case involving the killing of 90-year-old Emmoline Jimmerson and her 60-year-old daughter, Albertha Jordan, inside 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 for the deaths of the Mississippi State students 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’s lawyers 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.
Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch attempted to have the state’s high court set Manning’s execution date in November 2023. Although the high court agreed to postpone Manning’s execution date until his conviction challenge was submitted, the judicial body’s latest ruling could now set the spiral in motion for the inmate to be put to death at the hands of the state.
“Today the Court perverts its function as an appellate court and makes factual determinations that belong squarely within the purview of the circuit court judge,” Justice Jim Kitchens wrote in dissent to the majority opinion’s most recent decision to deny Manning’s petition for post-conviction relief.
“This Court has held explicitly that ‘when an important witness to a crime recants his testimony and offers a reason for having given false testimony at trial, the defendant/petitioner is entitled to an evidentiary hearing to determine whether the witness lied at trial or on his affidavit.'”
Manning’s attorneys will continue to fight for a rehearing. The inmate maintains his innocence to this day.
