A 16th circuit court judge ruled Friday not to dismiss a case against a former Columbus police officer involved in a fatal shooting three years ago.
Attorneys for Canyon Boykin, who was indicted for manslaughter in 2016, moved earlier this year for Judge Lee Coleman to issue a writ of mandamus, asking for a dismissal of the case based on what the defense argued was a lack of evidence from the prosecution.
However, Coleman denied the motion, saying he didn’t feel he had the authority to dismiss a criminal case before it went to trial.
Though it’s a Lowndes County case, the hearing took place in Noxubee County Circuit Court, where Coleman was presiding last week.
Boykin, a white officer, shot and killed 26-year-old Ricky Ball, an African-American, on Oct. 16, 2015, after a traffic stop in north Columbus. During the stop, Ball, who was a passenger in the vehicle pulled over, ran from the police. Boykin and his attorneys have argued Ball was armed and was attempting to shoot at Boykin when Boykin shot him.
After the shooting, the city of Columbus fired Boykin for violating several Columbus Police Department policies, including not activating his body camera during the traffic stop or the shooting. The city later settled a wrongful termination suit Boykin filed.
Boykin was slated to stand trial for manslaughter in Walthall County in south Mississippi in 2017, after it was granted a change-of-venue due to local publicity surrounding the case. However, criminal proceedings in the case came to a standstill after multiple lawsuits were filed related to the shooting and Boykin’s subsequent firing.
Boykin’s attorneys have also moved several times to have the case dismissed or sent back to grand jury. The most recent of those motions was a request that Coleman quash the indictment which Coleman denied in November. Boykin’s attorneys appealed the decision to the state Supreme Court, which declined to hear the case.
During Friday’s hearing, prosecutor Stanley Alexander, a lawyer with the state Attorney General’s Office, said the motion for a writ of mandamus was the defense’s latest attempt to get the case thrown out before it went to a jury.
“It’s been denied,” he said. “They have reinvented it and given it a new name, but a rose is a rose by any other name.”
Alexander said it is the job of a grand jury to determine if there’s probable cause to prosecute a defendant in a criminal case. However, Boykin’s attorney, Jim Waide of Tupelo, argued this was a special case with a biased grand jury.
Waide pointed out Ball’s death had caused “public uproar” in Columbus, which led to the case being transferred to Walthall County due to concerns Lowndes County jurors would be biased. Waide argued the same could be said for a Lowndes County grand jury.
He added the grand jury was also biased due to stories in the national media about white officers shooting black civilians, which have prompted a national conversation on police brutality.
“(The jurors were) faced with all of that and they returned a bill that should never have been returned,” he said.
He said it is “general law” around the country for judges to dismiss cases “in the interest of justice.”
But Coleman declined.
“At this time, whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing, I just don’t think there’s any way to dismiss a case before it’s gone to trial,” he said.
A trial date for Boykin has not been set.
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