Screenshot from Democracy Now video.
The Mississippi Supreme Court has just issued a
stay of execution for Willie Jerome Manning:
Manning had been set to die by injection shortly after 6 p.m. CDT at the state prison in Parchman for the 1992 slayings of two college students.
The court said the execution should be delayed until it rules further on the case.
The FBI has said in recent days that there were errors in agent's testimony about ballistics tests and hair analysis in the case.
More on the case from
Democracy Now:
The state of Mississippi is preparing to execute an African-American prisoner tonight, despite an unusual admission from the FBI that its original analysis of the evidence contained errors. Willie Jerome Manning was convicted of murdering Jon Steckler and Tiffany Miller, two white college students, in 1992. The execution is going ahead after prosecutors and state courts refused to allow new DNA testing that could prove Manning’s innocence.
After the faulty testing was discovered and the credibility of two key witnesses' has been called into question, Manning's attorneys have spent the last four years asking the court to have the evidence retested. In an unusual admission of error, the FBI is offering to retest. Until today, Mississippi courts had blocked additional testing.
More from Democracy Now's Amy Goodman and Vanessa Potkin, a senior staff attorney at the Innocence Project:
Vanessa Potkin makes a final, critical point:
"It is unconscionable that an execution would go forward where there is biological evidence that can cut to the truth and show whether or not he did the crime. What is anybody afraid of?"
Indeed. What's wrong with making sure they've convicted the right man before they move forward with the execution?