Mississippi Today

Mississippi to pay more than $400K in attorneys’ fees over unconstitutional sodomy law

Published

2 years ago

July 28, 2023

Mississippi will have to pay more than $400,000 in attorneys’ fees after the attorney general’s office spent years defending a sodomy law that criminalizes oral and anal sex.

The law in question — Section 97-29-59 — was deemed unconstitutional in 2003 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the case Lawrence v. Texas that private sexual conduct was constitutionally protected.

But Mississippi kept its sodomy law on the books, opening the door for a 2016 legal challenge that resulted in the expensive attorneys’ fees.

The AGs office, under both Democrat Jim Hood and Republican Lynn Fitch, fought the class action lawsuit by the Center for Constitutional Rights and other advocacy legal organizations, which sued on behalf of five Mississippians who were required to register as sex offenders for sodomy convictions.

The case was finally resolved this summer when the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reviewed and affirmed the attorneys’ fees – and that Mississippi’s sodomy law is unconstitutional. The deadline for the state to appeal passed earlier this month.

Yet Mississippi’s “unnatural intercourse” law is still law. A state representative introduced a bill earlier this year to repeal it, but it received no attention and died in committee. And according to an attorney who worked on the lawsuit, there are still 14 people on the Mississippi Sex Offender Registry who were solely convicted under that law.

They could sue at any time, said the attorney, Matthew Strugar, and put the state on the hook for even more fees.

“They could file a lawsuit tomorrow,” Strugar said. “And given what the Fifth Circuit has said about the law being unconstitutional, it should be an easy win for those people.”

A spokesperson for the AGs office said Fitch does not have the authority to remove these 14 Mississippians from the registry. Mississippi code requires sex offenders to petition a circuit court in order to be removed from the registry.

Because the state’s unconstitutional sodomy law does not distinguish between consensual and nonconsensual sex, the circumstances that led to the convictions of the 14 Mississippians aren’t immediately known.

Rep. Jeramey Anderson, D-Escatawpa, said he did not expect his bill to repeal the sodomy law to go anywhere because leadership has prioritized passing laws that harm, not help, the state’s LGBTQ+ community. He has introduced the same bill three times since 2018; it has died in committee each time.

“I mean, the legislative process within itself is built for a small group of people from one side of the political spectrum,” he said. “In an ideal world, yes, I would love to have a meeting with leadership about this issue, whether that’s with the chair or whether that’s with the speaker.”

Anderson doesn’t have much hope that’ll happen even though he plans to reintroduce the bill next year.

“Because of the legislation (that’s) being pushed, it’s a waste of time to do that,” he said. “I’d rather introduce the bill and have some pressure put on by folks outside the Capitol. That’s where the rubber meets the road.”

Buttressing the lack of action on this law in Mississippi, legal experts on sodomy laws say, is the U.S. Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade last year. In his concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the court should reconsider other cases like Lawrence that deal with privacy rights.

“And probably for some states that means they’ll be reluctant to repeal it,” Gregory Nevins, a lawyer at Lambda Legal, told the New York Times. “As we saw, there were a lot of old abortion laws on the books that got dusted off after Dobbs.”

When Lawrence was decided in 2003, Mississippi was one of 13 states that still enforced a sodomy law banning consensual, non-procreative sex between adults. Strugar and the Center for Constitutional Rights brought lawsuits against a handful of these states, including Mississippi.

In some states, the lawsuit led to change. In South Carolina, the state settled shortly after a similar lawsuit was brought, removing people who were convicted under the state’s “buggery” law from its sex offender registry. So did Idaho.

Not in Mississippi. No other state fought his lawsuit as long or as hard as Mississippi did, Strugar said.

“We tried to reason with them and not file a lawsuit whereby the state of Mississippi would end up having to pay all this money,” he said. “They didn’t want to budge, so we had to do what we had to do.”

Mississippi’s law dates back to the early 1800s and bans oral and anal sex between consenting adults as well as bestiality.

It reads: “Every person who shall be convicted of the detestable and abominable crime against nature committed with mankind or with a beast, shall be punished by imprisonment in the penitentiary for a term of not more than ten years.”

Anyone who is convicted of one offense under this law is put on the sex offender registry for 25 years, after which time they can petition for removal. But two convictions result in a lifetime registration. And coming off the list is a rare feat: As of 2018, only four people had ever successfully petitioned for removal, according to the lawsuit.

The law primarily targeted poor and Black Mississippians, Strugar said. Their status on the registry imposed harsh burdens, preventing them from getting jobs, providing crucial care to their kids and even from going to public campgrounds or parks — places “where minor children congregate,” the complaint says.

There were two ways that Mississippians who were plaintiffs in the lawsuit ended up on the registry. The first, which applied to one plaintiff named “Arthur Doe,” was a conviction under the “unnatural intercourse” law in Mississippi. The second scenario involved people who had moved to Mississippi from Louisiana where they had been convicted under that state’s law that criminalized solicitation of sodomy.

Even though Mississippi does not criminalize solicitation of sodomy, the state still required these people to register as a sex offender — simply because the act of oral and anal sex is a registerable offense in Mississippi.

“We tried to negotiate with them for months,” Strugar said. “They refused to budge. They refused to take people off the registry. They were like, ‘well, that was Texas’ law the Supreme Court ruled on, not ours.”

“That’s a wild way to think about it,” he added, because Mississippi’s law is nearly identical to the Texas law that was ruled unconstitutional.

The lawsuit wound through the courts for years. In 2018, the AGs office agreed to a partial settlement to remove the people with Louisiana convictions from the registry.

But there was a wrinkle: U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves required Arthur Doe to have his petition heard in state court before the federal lawsuit could be resolved.

By then, Fitch had taken over the case. Strugar said Fitch’s office never settled with Arthur Doe, but his federal claims were ultimately dismissed by Reeves after the Hinds County Circuit Court vacated his conviction thus removing him from the registry.

But most of the responsibility for the attorneys’ fees lies with Hood, Strugar said. When he brought the lawsuit, Strugar said he’d heard complaints from people in Mississippi that it was a bad look for Hood, who was contemplating a run for governor.

“They said, ‘oh, you liberal civil rights folks, Jim Hood is the only chance we’ve got for statewide office, his case could look bad for him,’” Strugar said. “Then you shouldn’t fight it.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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Mississippi Today

On this day in 1945, Sister Rosetta Tharpe hit the R&B charts

Published

12 hours ago

April 30, 2025

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – @MSTODAYnews – 2025-04-30 07:00:00

by Jerry Mitchell, Mississippi Today
April 30, 2025

April 30, 1945

Publicity photo of American musician Sister Rosetta Tharpe in 1938.

Sister Rosetta Tharpe, known as the “godmother of rock ‘n’ roll,” made history by becoming the first gospel artist to rocket up the R&B charts with her gospel hit, “Strange Things Happening Every Day.” In so doing, she paved the way for a strange new sound.

“Rock ‘n’ roll was bred between the church and the nightclubs in the soul of a queer Black woman in the 1940s named Sister Rosetta Tharpe,” National Public Radio wrote. “She was there before Elvis, Little Richard and Johnny Cash swiveled their hips and strummed their guitars. It was Tharpe, the godmother of rock ‘n’ roll, who turned this burgeoning musical style into an international sensation.”

Born in Arkansas, the musical prodigy grew up in Mississippi in the Church of God in Christ, a Pentecostal denomination that welcomed all-out music and praise. By age 6, she was performing alongside her mandolin-playing mother in a traveling evangelistic troupe. By the mid-1920s, she and her mother had joined the Great Migration to Chicago, where they continued performing.

“As Tharpe grew up, she began fusing Delta blues, New Orleans jazz and gospel music into what would become her signature style,” NPR wrote.

Her hard work paid off when she joined the Cotton Club Revue in New York City. She was only 23. Before the end of 1938, she recorded gospel songs for Decca, including “Rock Me,” which became a huge hit and made her an overnight sensation. Little Richard, Aretha Franklin and Jerry Lee Lewis have all cited her as an influence.

“Sister Rosetta played guitar like the men I was listening to, only smoother, with bigger notes,” said singer-songwriter Janis Ian. “And of course, personally, any female player was a big influence on me, because there were so few.”

After hearing her successors on the radio, Tharpe was quoted as saying, “Oh, these kids and rock and roll — this is just sped up rhythm and blues. I’ve been doing that forever.”

On the eve of a 1973 recording session, she died of a stroke and was buried in an unmarked grave. In the decades that followed, she finally began to receive the accolades that had eluded her in life.

In 2007, she was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame, and money was raised for her headstone. Eleven years later, she was inducted into the Rock and Rock Hall of Fame.

“She was, and is,” NPR concluded, “an unmatched artist.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The post On this day in 1945, Sister Rosetta Tharpe hit the R&B charts appeared first on mississippitoday.org

Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Centrist

The article is a historical and biographical piece about Sister Rosetta Tharpe, a pioneering musician who influenced the development of rock ‘n’ roll. The content is factual, focusing on her contributions to music and her impact on the genre. The language used does not present any ideological stance or promote a specific political view. It highlights the cultural and musical significance of Tharpe without delving into any political or controversial matters, making it neutral in tone. Therefore, the article can be classified as centrist in its presentation.

Mississippi Today

Ex-MS Coast police officer accused of assaulting 74-year-old female protester

Published

1 day ago

April 29, 2025

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – @BobbyHarrison9 – 2025-04-29 15:51:00

by Margaret Baker, Sun Herald, Mississippi Today
April 29, 2025

LONG BEACH — A retired Long Beach police officer arrested Thursday is accused of assaulting a woman holding a protest sign and threatening a second victim, Long Beach Police Chief Billy Seal confirmed Friday.

Police arrested Craig DeRouche, 64, for allegedly assaulting a woman during an encounter on U.S. 90 at Jeff Davis Avenue. He is charged with a second misdemeanor charge of assault by threat for allegedly threatening a man who reported that he saw the alleged attack and tried to intervene, Seal said.

A woman protesting on the Mississippi Coast was allegedly assaulted by a former police officer. Photo courtesy of the Sun Herald.

According to Seal, the protester, identified as a 74-year-old woman, was holding a protest sign supporting the right to due process under the U.S. Constitution for Americans before the assault occurred.

The woman, a Navy veteran, is now in stable condition in a local hospital.

READ THE FULL STORY at the Sun Herald.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The post Ex-MS Coast police officer accused of assaulting 74-year-old female protester appeared first on mississippitoday.org

Political Bias Rating: Centrist

The article presents a factual account of an incident involving a retired police officer accused of assaulting a protester. The tone is neutral, focusing on the details of the event without engaging in overt political rhetoric or bias. The source, Mississippi Today, is known for providing straightforward news coverage, and there is no clear indication of political framing or partisanship in the language used. The article simply reports the incident and includes basic details about the people involved, including the protester’s age, condition, and the charges against the officer. No ideological perspectives are offered, which supports a centrist assessment.

Mississippi Today

Chris Lemonis had at least earned the right to finish season

Published

1 day ago

April 29, 2025

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – @rick_cleveland – 2025-04-29 15:11:00

by Rick Cleveland, Mississippi Today
April 29, 2025

Chris Lemonis speaks to reporters during a press conference at the 2021 College World Series

On April 28, 2022, the Ole Miss baseball Rebels had won 23 games and lost 17 overall. They were 6-12 in the Southeastern Conference. The various Internet message boards were filled with posts calling for head baseball coach Mike Bianco’s dismissal. Yes, and two months later, Bianco and his Rebels won the College World Series.

Contrast that with this: On April 28 of this year, Mississippi State’s Diamond Dogs had a 25-19 record overall, 7-14 in the SEC. The various Internets boards were filled with posts calling for head coach Chris Lemonis to be fired. He was.

In both those situations, the Mississippi teams were six games over the .500 mark overall. In both those situations, the teams had lost twice as many SEC games as they had won. Ole Miss stayed the course, and it paid off, remarkably so. In sharp contrast, Mississippi State pulled the trigger, and we shall see what happens next.

Another big difference in the two situations: Bianco had never won a national championship in his previous 20 years at Ole Miss. Lemonis won the first national championship in State history just four years ago.

You ask me, that national championship, not even four years ago, should have earned Lemonis, at the very least, the right to finish out this season. I don’t see anything to be gained with firing the man with three weeks remaining in the regular season. Most NCAA Tournament projections have Mississippi State listed as one of the first four teams out. The Bulldogs are ranked 45th in RPI against the nation’s 13th most difficult schedule. They are on the NCAA Tournament bubble, just as Ole Miss was three seasons ago.

This is not to say I believe that Lemonis, given the opportunity, would have done what Bianco did three years ago, But it is certainly within the realm of possibility. We’ve seen it happen. In baseball, more than any other sport, teams run hot and cold. State could have gotten hot, gotten on a roll in May and June and at least made it to the College World Series. It happens for someone nearly every year in college baseball. For that matter, it could still happen for State this year with interim head coach Justin Parker calling the shots.

And I know what many of those calling for the dismissal of Lemonis will say. They’ll say that in firing Lemonis now, State can get a head start on hiring a new coach to turn the program around. Not so. Any coach that the Bulldogs would hire is still coaching a team and will be coaching a team through at least May.

Traditionally, Mississippi State baseball is one of the nation’s top programs. State baseball facilities are second to none. Fan support is among the nation’s best.

But it is not, as athletic director Zac Selmon put it “the premier program in college baseball.” It is much more accurate to say State’s is a really good program in the premier conference in college baseball.

LSU, Texas, and Arkansas, all teams in the same conference, have similar fan support, terrific facilities and have enjoyed much more on-the-field success. Tennessee has improved dramatically. Ole Miss, Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, Texas A & M have made huge strides in facilities, fan support and baseball emphasis.

And here’s the deal: Tradition, facilities and fan support, while still important, all have become secondary issues when it comes to ingredients for success in college athletics. You know what really matters most? NIL and the ability to attract players in the transfer portal, that’s what. This is no longer amateur sports. It’s pay-for-play. It’s professional sports in every respect.

The first question recruits ask: What can you pay me? The first question any prospective coach will ask Mississippi State: How much money will I get to pay players? In Monday’s press release announcing the dismissal of Lemonis, Selmon was quoted as saying State’s baseball “NIL offerings” are second to none. There’s no way of knowing for sure, but I have heard otherwise from numerous sources.

I hate that we have reached this point in college athletics, but we most assuredly have. I also hate that Lemonis, a good man and a good coach, doesn’t get the chance to finish the season. I thought he had earned that.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The post Chris Lemonis had at least earned the right to finish season appeared first on mississippitoday.org

Political Bias Rating: Centrist

The article presents an opinion focused on the dismissal of Mississippi State baseball coach Chris Lemonis, highlighting the contrast between the treatment of Lemonis and Ole Miss’ coach Mike Bianco. The writer criticizes the decision to fire Lemonis prematurely, arguing that his past success, including a national championship, warranted the opportunity to finish the season. The piece does not lean heavily toward any political or ideological position, instead focusing on the dynamics within college athletics and coaching decisions. While the critique of the decision might appeal to readers who value stability and tradition, it does not show a clear partisan or ideological bias.