Chronicles from Parchman #16: How Many Exonerees Does It Take to Make Mississippi See?

This is the latest installment in the Chronicles from Parchman series, a monthly column by writer L. Patri, who has been fighting his wrongful conviction on Parchman’s death row for over thirty years. Listen to the voiceover if you want to hear Mr. Patri read this essay.Demand for a moratorium is not a call to coddle criminals. It is a demand for accountability and integrity. It is a demand that we investigate how and why multiple innocent people have been sentenced to die. It is a demand that we hold law enforcement, prosecutors, and expert witnesses whose actions can lead to state-sanctioned murder accountable. The State of Mississippi’s continuing pursuit of executions, including its recent unaliving of Charles Ray Crawford despite known systemic failures, is not justice—it is a willful disregard for human life and the principles of a fair legal system. Mississippi’s death penalty system isn’t merely flawed; it is built upon a foundation of discredited science and unreliable evidence. The death penalty is the most extreme and irreversible form of punishment, and we cannot afford to use it when human error is so prevalent. It is time for Mississippi to put on its Big-Boy drawers and take responsibility.The term “exoneree” means a person who has been officially cleared of all charges related to the crime. In other words, “exoneration” means that prosecutors, judges, and oftentimes juries, got it completely wrong and were ready to kill an innocent person. As of 2025, seven people have been exonerated from Mississippi’s death row after being wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death. They are:1. Curtis Flowers (exonerated 2020). Curtis was tried six times for the same 1996 quadruple murder. The first three convictions were overturned by the Mississippi Supreme Court, and the next two trials ended in mistrials. The sixth conviction was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2019 (Flowers v. Mississippi) due to prosecutorial misconduct, specifically the racially discriminatory use of peremptory strikes by District Attorney Doug Evans. In September 2020, all charges against Curtis were dismissed with prejudice, meaning they cannot be refiled. While this ended the case and he was released, the legal basis was prosecutorial misconduct.2. Eddie Lee Howard (exonerated 2021). Eddie was convicted in 1994 of the murder and rape of an eighty-four-year-old woman. He was exonerated when his conviction was heavily based on the discredited testimony of Dr. Steven Hayne and bite-mark analysis, which has been largely rejected as junk science. DNA testing later excluded Howard and pointed to another perpetrator.3. Sherwood Brown (exonerated 2021). Sherwood was convicted of a 1994 murder during a robbery in Desoto County. He was exonerated when the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled he received an unfair trial because the prosecution withheld critical DNA evidence that pointed to other suspects.4. Kennedy Brewer (exonerated 2008). Kennedy Brewer was convicted in 1995 of the murder and rape of his girlfriend’s three-year-old daughter. He was exonerated when DNA testing from the crime scene, fought for by the Innocence Project, excluded Brewer and matched another man, Justin Albert Johnson.5. Michelle Byrom (exonerated 2014) Michelle was convicted in 2000 of murder-for-hire in the death of her husband. In 2014, the Mississippi Supreme Court took the extraordinary step of overturning her conviction and death sentence before her execution, citing ineffective assistance of counsel. The court noted that her son had repeatedly confessed to the murder, a fact her trial lawyers failed to properly present. Facing the prospect of a new trial, Byrom pleaded guilty to a greatly reduced charge of manslaughter and was released for time served.6. Corey Maye (2011) Corey was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death for the 2001 shooting of a police officer during a raid on his home. He claimed he did not know the intruders were police and was acting in self-defense to protect his family. His conviction was a major point of controversy in the legal world. His sentence was eventually reduced to manslaughter, and he was released in 2011 for time served after accepting a plea deal.7. Sabrina Butler (exonerated 1995). Sabrina was convicted of capital murder in the 1989 death of her nine-month-old son in Columbus. She was exonerated at a retrial, when her defense successfully argued that the child’s death was not a homicide but the result of a rare medical condition, and that his injuries were consistent with Butler’s attempts to perform CPR. She was acquitted.This list of exonerations is evidence of a broken system. Though the judicial branch has at times corrected its own worst errors by vacating convictions, the leaders of Mississippi have chosen to perpetuate this broken system rather than reform it. The political branch chooses to expand, not restrict, their execution machinery by granting the Department of Corrections broad discretion in carrying out executions, having at their disposal such methods as lethal injection, nitrogen hypoxia, electrocution, firing squad, and hanging. They should have used instead a spark of creativity to call for investigations into the root causes of these repeated miscarriages of justice.Again, seven individuals from Mississippi’s death row have been found to be innocent. Let these exonerees serve as a reminder of the fallibility of the Mississippi criminal justice system. Until Mississippi puts a halt to its executions and conducts a full, transparent investigation, every leader who supports the death penalty is complicit in a system that has been proven incapable of guaranteeing it will not kill an innocent person.If Mississippi chooses to be pro death penalty, then Mississippians should take ownership and responsibility to ensure that all measures have been taken so that no innocent persons will be unalived. We must stop this nonsense notion that it is inevitable and acceptable that “sometimes” we get it wrong. NO! We should never get it wrong because that life taken can never be given back. Mississippi can’t return my breath of Life, so I need Mississippi to get this WRONG right.L. Patri is of Black and Natchez Indian descent, and he is the father of one daughter and a grandfather of five grandchildren. He was born on the river in Natchez, Mississippi, and for the past three decades, he has been challenging his wrongful conviction of capital murder. He writes in multiple and hybrid genres, including thought pieces, journalism, short fiction, letters, and memoir.Rooted Magazine is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Last month:Last year: This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rooted.substack.com/subscribe