The Mississippi Supreme Court has ruled that a Lowndes County man convicted of capital murder should be eligible for parole.
The court’s decision, released Thursday, vacated a sentence of life without parole for Mack Arthur King in the Aug. 3, 1980 death of 84-year-old Lelia Patterson.
A jury convicted King in December 1981 for beating, strangling and drowning Patterson as he robbed her Lowndes County home. The jury sentenced King to death, and two subsequent Lowndes County juries upheld King’s sentence, according to District Attorney Forrest Allgood.
In 2013, the U.S. District Court for Northern Mississippi vacated King’s death sentence, ruling he was “intellectually disabled and therefore ineligible for execution.” The federal court remanded the case to Lowndes County for resentencing.
The state Supreme Court’s decision released Thursday overruled the new sentence of life without parole because, at the time of King’s 1981 conviction, death and life with parole were the only sentencing options.
Allgood told The Dispatch on Thursday that King, who has served 34 years in the Mississippi Department of Corrections, would likely be eligible for parole immediately.
“Three Lowndes County juries said he should die, and now he’s going to walk out of jail,” Allgood said. “We’ll look at the ruling and see if there are any avenues for us, but I can’t see where there are any … they have closed the door in my face, so to speak.”
Zack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.
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