The Mississippi Supreme Court will not allow Willie Jerome “Fly” Manning to return to circuit court with his claim of newly discovered evidence based on a key witness recanting last year. The court issued its order Wednesday in a 5-4 majority opinion.
Manning was convicted in 1994 of the murders of Jon Steckler and Tiffany Miller, two Mississippi State University students, that occurred two years earlier.
According to trial testimony, Manning allegedly kidnapped Miller and Stickler. He then allegedly shot Steckler and ran him over with his car, then raped and murdered Miller.
While Manning was convicted and sentenced in 1994, he was granted a stay of execution in 2013, just four hours before he was set to die.
Attorney General Lynn Fitch’s office filed a motion Nov. 9 to lift that stay of execution order. The defense filed a motion Nov. 29, arguing that new evidence undermining the case against Manning had come to light.
Earl Jordan, a jailhouse informant who testified Manning confessed to him, recanted his testimony in a signed affidavit last year. Another key witness, Henry Richardson, has also claimed that he and Manning never discussed details of the crime, despite previous testimony to the contrary, the defense wrote.
The defense also argued ballistic evidence needed to be reassessed because it has since been discredited by scientific advances. At trial, evidence included slugs dug from a tree in Manning’s yard that forensically linked him to the murder weapon.
The defense brings up another case in which Manning was also sentenced to death. Manning was convicted and sentenced to death in a separate trial for the 1993 murders of Emmoline Jimmerson and her daughter, Albertha Jordan. That conviction was overturned in 2015, and the charges dropped, after a jailhouse informant recanted his testimony and the court discovered that exculpatory evidence had been withheld by investigators.
In the opinion the Supreme Court issued Wednesday, the majority argues that Jordan’s recantation should not be considered new or recently discovered evidence, since his recanting was included in a prior petition for relief in 2013.
The opinion also says that Jordan’s testimony was “seriously contested” at trial, and the trial judge even instructed the jury to be cautious with his testimony. Because of that, it is not “practically conclusive” that Jordan’s recantation would have caused a different result.
The Supreme Court majority also writes that Richardson’s affidavit says he was not contacted until 2023, although Manning would have known about him during the trial 30 years ago.
As far as physical evidence goes, the opinion also states that the defense’s claims of “newly discovered” firearms evidence is the same evidence it already reviewed in 2013.
“Petitioner has had more than a full measure of justice,” the opinion reads. “Tiffany Miller and Jon Steckler have not. Their families have not. The citizens of Mississippi have not. Finality of justice is of great import in all cases.”
The opinion also denies all other claims of relief set forth in the Nov. 29 filing, along with another motion filed on May 3 – which would have added additional complaints centered around Jordan’s testimony on willingness to take a polygraph test during the original trial – to the petition.
Dissenting opinion
Presiding Justice James Kitchens offered a dissenting opinion, which was joined by fellow Supreme Court Justices Leslie King, Josiah Coleman and Robert Chamberlain.
The minority opinion says Manning is entitled to an evidentiary hearing, as Manning was denied relief in 2013 because the defense failed to present any “competent evidence” Jordan recanted his testimony.
At that time, Jordan’s recantation was presented to the court through an investigator’s affidavit. The investigator said Jordan recanted in December 2012, but he refused to sign a statement at that time and refused to meet again in 2013.
In the signed 2023 affidavit, Jordan directly said his trial testimony was not true. Instead, he claims he was manipulated by then-Sheriff Dolph Bryan to testify against Manning. Bryan was Oktibbeha County sheriff from 1976 to 2012.
“I talked to the sheriff about four or five times,” a portion of Jordan’s 2023 affidavit reads. “The sheriff told me the way he thought Willie Manning had done the murder, and I changed some words to the way the sheriff said he thought it happened. The sheriff was satisfied.”
With Jordan’s affidavit, Manning has done exactly what the court indicated would warrant an evidentiary hearing in 2013, the objection reads.
“Jordan’s affidavit raises questions of fact that entitle Manning to an evidentiary hearing, especially in light of the heightened standard that applies in death penalty cases,” the dissenting opinion reads. “This is particularly true given that, without Jordan’s original testimony, the case against Manning was circumstantial.”
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