I am Tom Freeland, a lawyer in Oxford, Mississippi. The picture in the header is my law office. I'm on Twitter as NMissC

Missing Posts: If you have a link to a post that's not here or are looking for posts from Summer of 2010, check this page.

BlogRoll

Execution of Willie Jerome Manning stayed by Miss. Supreme Court

After two letters from the FBI stating that expert testimony used in the trial of Willie Jerome Manning was inappropriate, the Mississippi Supreme Court voted 8-1 to stay his execution (which would have been at 6:00 PM tonight) pending further development of those facts.

The Mississippi Innocence Project has supported Manning’s effort to obtain [...]

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Personally, I’d counsel use of a different word.

I’m familiar with this case, and there is much to blog about it.  For now, this headline is a place-marker.  I’m assuming the reporter who wrote the story, and whose son is a lawyer, was pretty annoyed when she saw this headline.

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In chambers, the chancellor said to the lawyer…

… who, with his client, seemed to have control of the situation, “You’ve got the egg in your pocket.”

That was entirely new to me, but completely clear as to meaning. A couple of Google searches suggest it’s new to Google, too. Without the Dictionary of American Regional English at hand,

I’m curious if [...]

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Speaking of unauthorized practice of law…

Well, some of us were speaking about it.

Here’s a classified ad in today’s Oxford Eagle:

Divorce Services DIVORCE WITH OR WITHOUT children $125.00. Includes name change and property settlement agreement. SAVE hundreds. Fast and easy. Call 1-888-733-7165, 24/7

Search for the number on the internet, and one learns that the same ad is [...]

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Some legal research with dad and the law clerk

Probably 5-8 years ago, one our firm’s former law clerks called me with this story about my father today.

Dad told the clerk he wanted a Mississippi case on a very specific point. The clerk went looking, and, to his surprise, turns up a case on that exact issue. He pulls the book (because [...]

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Mississippi Legislature tackles threat of the thing with a human brain

Another howler before the Mississippi legislature, HB 819 has drawn attention because it handles the threat of monsters-with-human brains by making creation of those a crime. Yes, it will be unlawful to create…

A nonhuman life form engineered such that it contains a human brain or a brain derived wholly from human neural tissues.

[...]

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House Bill 490: Mississippi’s Bid for Supremacy in the area of Legislative Silliness

So that you can point at them and laugh should they walk into a restaurant, pictured above are Gary Chism, representing House District 39 (Lowndes, Clay, Oktibeha Counties), a Shriner, insurance agent, Republican, and chair of the House Insurance committee and Jeffery Smith, representing House District 39 (Lowndes), Baptist Deacon,  former County [...]

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Sad news: Courthouse fire at Walthall

The courthouse in Webster County burned today (photo by Robin Gary Lowry on Facebook).

It’s a courthouse without a town, almost, between Calhoun City and Eupora.   It was an elegant courthouse that will be missed.

Update

Here’s an aerial shot pulled off Google Maps to give an idea just how all-by-itself [...]

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Radley Balko on Mississippi injustice, Stephen Hayne and West

Radley Balko has published on Huffington a huge project on Mississippi’s infamous pathologist Stephen Hayne and his erstwhile sidekick, dentist Michael West.

This timeline, outlining case after case (including some of Hayne’s civil testimony) is devastating and damning.  The timeline is a side bar to this account of the solving of the murder of [...]

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Clarion Ledger series by Emily Le Coz about Barbour Pardons

Emily Le Coz has written an interesting update on the Barbour pardons in the Clarion Ledger.  She focuses on one of the more controversial ones– murderer David Gatlin, who is now working in a ministry in Birmingham. She does updates on as many of the 28 who were still in prison as she could [...]

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