05 May 2017 :

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has affirmed the decision of a Mississippi federal district court (Judge Carlton W. Reeves of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi on March 31, 2015) granting a new trial to Lisa Jo Chamberlin, holding that Forrest county prosecutors unconstitutionally struck black jurors from her case on the basis of race. Ms. Chamberlin, who is white, had been sentenced to death for a double murder in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Her co-defendant's death sentence had previously been overturned on other grounds (see Roger Gillett, 12/06/2014).