Supreme Court denies appeal of Mississippi death row inmate
Jul. 1—JACKSON — The Mississippi Supreme Court shut the door on the appeal of a death row inmate, denying the request for additional DNA testing by Willie Jerome Manning.
In a 7-2 decision issued Thursday, the high court agreed with a circuit court ruling that denied Manning's request to send 30-year-old evidence to a new laboratory for additional DNA testing. The court noted that six years of testing failed to provide any evidence to prove Manning's innocence and that there was no proof that additional testing would be any different.
Manning, 54, was convicted of two counts of capital murder in Oktibbeha County in November 1994 for the deaths of two Mississippi State University students. Tiffany Miller, 22, and Jon Steckler, 19, were kidnapped in December 1992 and found dead the next day. Both were shot. Steckler had been run over. Miller may have been sexually assaulted.
Manning was scheduled to be executed in May 2013. The Mississippi Supreme Court granted a stay just hours before the execution to allow the defense to look into new DNA testing and additional fingerprint comparisons.
For six years, Manning had DNA evidence tested and expert fingerprint analysis performed and received allegedly inconclusive results. In January 2020, Manning filed a motion in Oktibbeha County Circuit Court to allow the evidence samples to be transferred to a new lab that specialized in isolating and identifying DNA in older and smaller hair samples using different methods than the first lab.
Circuit court denied the motion saying Manning presented nothing that showed a reasonable likelihood that the second lab could provide results the first lab could not. On appeal, the Supreme Court affirmed the circuit court decision.
If the high court rules that Manning has now exhausted all of his appeal options, it could begin the process of setting a new execution date for Manning.
In November 2021, the state held its first execution in nine years when it put to death David Cox by lethal injection.
Manning holds the dubious honor of being sentenced to death for two separate double-homicides. Two years after he was convicted of capital murders of Miller and Steckler and sentenced to death, he was convicted of two additional counts of capital murder.
In January 1993, someone broke into the Starkville apartment of a 90-year-old woman and her 60-year-old daughter. Both were beaten and had their throats slashed. In July 1996, Manning was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death in that case.
About two tears later, the Supreme Court ruled that prosecutors withheld potentially exculpatory information and granted a new trial in the second double-homicide case. Those charges were dropped in April 2015.
