Image: Manning (Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, Tupelo, November 1, 2024)
Image: Manning (Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, Tupelo, November 1, 2024)
Willie Jerome Manning, on death row in Mississippi, was convicted at two separate trials of two unrelated double murders. He was exonerated of one of his convictions (Jimmerson-Jordan murders) on April 20, 2015, because the key witness recanted, saying his testimony had been coerced by the prosecutor and prepared by police; significantly, the prosecution withheld evidence that showed this witness must have been lying. If this evidence (police canvass notes) had not existed, or had not been withheld, Willie could well have faced execution on the basis of false, coerced, recanted testimony. (See more about this case below, at
1993 JIMMERSON-JORDAN CASE [BROOKVILLE GARDEN CASE]: EXONERATED)
Willie is still fighting his other capital conviction (Steckler-Miller murders), for which he came within hours of execution on May 7, 2013. He has always maintained his innocence in this case.
Forrest Allgood was the prosecutor in both Willie’s cases—and in six other wrongful conviction capital cases in the same judicial district. Sheriff Dolph Bryan was also involved in both of Willie’s cases (see more here).
The rules of the US death penalty system and the “materiality” rule make it extremely difficult for an innocent death row inmate to be granted a new trial. Black Americans are “about 50% more likely to be innocent of the murder than other convicted murderers”, largely because of the greater incidence of police misconduct against black suspects.
1992 STECKLER-MILLER CASE
Events Leading to Willie’s Conviction
Students Tiffany Miller and Jon Steckler were found fatally shot on a country road near Starkville, Mississippi, at approximately 2:15 a.m. on December 11, 1992.
A white car, later identified as Tiffany’s, was noticed by a witness just before 1 am that night parked outside her apartment block in Starkville, not far from the trailer where Tiffany lived. Jon’s blood was later discovered on the car’s underside, indicating that he had been run over by a driver in the car. (See here – pp 7-8 and p. 36)
This sighting of Tiffany’s car calls into question the state’s theory of the timing of the murders: the state said that Tiffany and Jon left Jon’s Sigma Chi fraternity house between approximately 12:50 and 1:00 a.m. The state’s theory assumes that Tiffany’s car was parked outside the frat house; but at that very time it was seen outside the apartment block.
New evidence shows that another witness told the police that she heard gun shots and a man yelling that night at some time after midnight, from the direction of Tiffany’s trailer – she thought the voice was that of a white man. Strangely, the police failed to pursue this information. Had they done so, they would have heard corroborative evidence from at least one other witness.
The police investigation focused instead on reported theft from a car parked outside the Sigma Chi house that night. According to the car’s owner, the theft must have occurred by about 1.30 a.m., while the car was unlocked and undamaged. It is not clear why he added that by the morning the car was damaged.
The sheriff theorized that the reported car theft had been disturbed by Tiffany and Jon, and that the thief then took them away and murdered them. Fingerprints lifted from this car were not assessed until 2015, despite their significance in the sheriff’s hypothesis.
An experienced investigator later expressed surprise that the sheriff pursued this theory of a disturbed theft: the evidence – Jon run over, and Tiffany sexually assaulted – suggested a much more personal motive for the killings.
In pursuit of his theory, the sheriff doggedly interrogated various African American males suspected of car burglary. Remarkably, Willie Manning fell under suspicion when a huggie from the car reported as burglarized was found at a great distance – 5 miles – from Willie’s home. Nothing on the huggie linked it to Willie. (See here, p.9)
Willie had been at the 2500 Club on the other side of Starkville on the night of the murders; witnesses who were there at the time have confirmed this.
However, the sheriff used coercion and favors to persuade other, unreliable witnesses to testify against Willie (similar coercion and favors were later also used to convict Willie in the Jimmerson-Jordan murders’ case).
Under this pressure, Earl Jordan said that Willie had confessed to him that he (Willie) and another African American man had forced the two students into Tiffany’s two-seater car). His account was logistically impossible – four people could not have squashed into a two-seater car. It was also impossible because the man named as Willie’s accomplice was securely locked away in jail in Alabama at the time of the murders. Tellingly, the police did not pursue this alleged accomplice. See Motion for Leave to File for Successive Petition, September 29, 2023, Pp 10 -11 {Pp 14-15 of PDF).
The state quickly changed the trial narrative to its own – only slightly less preposterous – version of what happened. According to the prosecutor, Willie acted alone in transporting the two students with him in the two-seater car (while presumably – according to this theory – having also crammed in stolen items from the other car). It is unclear how a perpetrator could have controlled two victims in a two-seater car. (John Wise, the owner of the burglarized car, testified that “the only way to have three people in the MR2 was to have one on the other’s lap in the passenger seat”. See Petition for Post-Conviction Relief P.13, ¶ 36. {P. 21 of PDF}.)
Earl Jordan retracted his ludicrous testimony in 2023, explaining that the sheriff had pressurized him to inculpate Willie. See Motion for Leave to File for Successive Petition, September 29, 2023, Pp 10 -11 {Pp 14-15 of PDF). His testimony would have significantly influenced the jury’s verdict (the dissenting justices noted in September, 2024 that “Manning’s confession to Jordan removed this case from the circumstantial realm.”)
The jury was not informed that a different important witness was incentivized with a large amount of money, gifts and concessions to testify against Willie; the jurors were therefore unable to evaluate how freely her testimony was given.
The judge at Willie’s trial allowed an FBI expert to describe hair samples recovered from the two-seater car as belonging to an African American; this testimony was discredited in 2013 by the Department of Justice. Strangely, the trial judge later dismissed the hair evidence as being of no probative value. But the hair testimony must have influenced the jury.
Trial testimony by an FBI firearms expert was discredited in 2013, and even further discredited in 2023. But this testimony must have influenced the jury’s verdict. (See here – pp 50-79)
No witness claimed to have seen Willie in the parking lot; nobody testified that Willie was ever seen in Miller’s car. See Brief of Appellant, April 19, 2021. P.6 {P. 10 of PDF}.)
No physical evidence linked Willie to the murders. No physical evidence linked the reported car theft to the murders.
Recent Events
In September, 2023, Willie filed evidence that several state witnesses, including key witness, Earl Jordan, were incentivized into falsely testifying against him, and that new developments in science further invalidated firearms testimony given at his trial. (See WLBT article.)
The new evidence also reveals the failure of the state to follow up a witness statement describing a white male yelling, followed by gunshots, coming from the direction of Tiffany Miller’s home shortly before the victims’ bodies were discovered.
In September, 2024, the Mississippi Supreme Court issued a shocking 4-3 decision denying Willie the right to pursue his claim in the circuit court, despite the erosion of the evidence given at Willie’s trial. In a surreal twist, the majority judges speak of justice for Tiffany and Jon without acknowledging the possibility that their murderer is still at large.
Issues with this Case
Willie has many serious issues to raise, including:
More about Forensics in this Case
It was the Steckler-Miller case that brought Willie close to execution on May 7 2013, following a 5:4 decision by the Mississippi Supreme Court that denied him his request—first made in 2001—for DNA testing of biological evidence from the murder scene and analysis of fingerprints found in the car belonging to one of the victims. The dissenting judges issued separate statements that included the following:
“Manning presented evidence at trial that undermined the State’s case against him.”
They also noted that DNA testing might enhance public safety by identifying unknown perpetrators.
Shortly before Willie’s scheduled execution, as part of their review of widespread flaws in FBI forensic evidence, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) sent three letters to officials in Mississippi admitting that FBI expert testimony given at Willie’s trial regarding hair and ballistics was flawed. Two of the letters were about hair testimony.
The first letter revealed the error made when the FBI hair analyst gave the jurors a general explanation of microscopic hair comparison: he wrongly ‘stated or implied’ that a hair could be ‘associated with a specific individual to the exclusion of all others’. The second letter focused on another error: in a written report the analyst stated unequivocally that some of the hair tested in Willie’s case (fragments vacuumed from the floor of Miller’s car) was ‘of Negroid origin’, and in testimony he described it as being ‘African American’. The letter tells us that this ‘exceeded the limits of science’: he should instead have testified that the hair exhibited traits associated with African Americans.
The FBI offered to provide testing of relevant hair evidence or related biological evidence.
The third DOJ letter outlined the errors that were made in ballistics analysis:
“The science regarding firearms examination does not permit examiner testimony that a specific gun fired a specific bullet to the exclusion of all other guns in the world.”
The Mississipi Supreme Court issued a Motion to Stay Execution to Willie only 4 hours before the scheduled execution time on May 7 2013. The decision was widely reported, including in The Huffington Post. The Court issued a further order on July 23 2013, unanimously reversing its earlier 5:4 decision to deny testing. No reason was given for the reversal, but presumably all judges now embraced views originally held only by the minority.
The July 23 2013 Court ruling also denied Willie his request for hearings to consider the reliability of expert testimony regarding ballistics and hair analysis. A further request, to have his convictions set aside, was also turned down.
Evidence that might be suitable for DNA testing was located in April 2014. It was dispatched to an Orchid Cellmark lab in Dallas, Texas, later that year. The results from preliminary testing were made public on June 8 2015:
Rape kit
Three swabs were tested for semen. One was found to be positive, and the other two were inconclusive. All three were approved for further testing (DNA extraction and quantification to determine whether any male DNA was present).
Pubic hair
The sample of pubic hair combings was inconclusive for semen, so was approved for DNA extraction and quantification to determine whether any male DNA was present. The sample of pubic hair was negative for semen; no further testing on this sample is planned.
Fingernail scrapings (from both hands of both victims)
Preliminary testing established the concentration of human and male DNA present. The samples were approved for a further process to increase the concentration of DNA, to determine whether any male DNA profile was present that did not originate from the victims.
Hair from victims’ hands
Orchid Cellmark found that no hairs were present in the evidence marked as “hair in Miller’s right hand” or the evidence marked as “hair in Steckler’s left hand”.
However, after Orchid Cellmark’s merger with Bode Technology late in 2015, these hairs were listed as available for testing.
Only one hair from Miller’s hand was available: it was processed and produced a partial mitochondrial DNA profile.
Five hairs from Steckler’s hand were processed. Of these, one produced a full mitochondrial DNA profile, three produced a partial mitochondrial DNA profile, and one did not produce a reportable mitochondrial DNA profile.
Fingerprints
In 2015, forensic specialist Ron Smith was asked to compare the fingerprints found at the murder scene and on John Wise’s car with fingerprints contained in FBI databases, to identify any potential matches. In 2016 Smith concluded this process by reporting that no potential matches had been found.
Request for specialist testing of hair fragments
In 2019 hair fragments from Tiffany Miller’s car were sent for testing by Bode Technology. Following this testing, Bode recommended sending some of the evidence to another lab, MitoTyping Technologies, which has a much higher success rate in finding mitochondrial DNA in very small, very old hairs.
Willie asked to transfer seven hair fragments from Miller’s car to MitoTyping Technologies; however, this request was denied by the circuit court in 2020 and the Mississippi Supreme Court in 2022. The circuit court decision included the puzzling statement that the hairs from Miller’s car were irrelevant to the outcome of Willie’s case – despite the hairs having been admitted as state evidence at his trial. (As Mississippi Supreme Court Justice King states in his 2022 dissent, “some of the hair samples were directly used to convict Manning”.)
Willie asked the US Supreme Court to review the decision to deny further DNA testing. His petition notes the unfairness of arbitrarily limiting the right to DNA testing:
“There was no way for Manning to know from the outset that the hair samples had problems and that the initial lab would be unable to develop profiles. Only after the first lab attempted and failed to develop a mtDNA profile would Manning have known to look for another lab. Essentially, if Manning had guessed right and selected the most appropriate lab when the Mississippi Supreme Court first authorized testing, he could very well have had suitable profiles developed. Instead, he guessed wrong.” See P.36 of petition (P. 42 of pdf).
The petition was denied.
Other Issues with this Case
A crucial deadline for this case was missed in 2000 because the state court appointed first one, then another unqualified lawyer to defend Willie.* These lawyers failed to file appropriate papers and did nothing but seek to withdraw, citing their own inexperience and inappropriate qualifications. Meanwhile, Willie found a qualified lawyer who sought to represent him, but the Circuit Court failed to act on this motion.
On July 17, 2012 the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit blamed Willie for the confusion leading to this missed deadline. It failed to recognize Willie’s efforts to procure the attorney of his choice; and the fact that incarceration meant that effective self-representation was impossible. The United States Supreme Court declined to review the case. See more here.
Further Information about this Case
Andrew Cohen wrote extensively about this case in The Atlantic in May 2013: you can read his analysis here, here, here and here. You can also watch a video analyzing the case at Democracy Now.
Former policeman, Vincent Hill, believes that the students’ murders indicate not robbery, but a crime of passion:
(At 12.30) ‘I think if it was a robbery it would have happened right there, and there would have been no ride into the woods, and “I’m going to shoot the boyfriend in the back of the head, execution style, and then I’m going to run him over because I hate him so much, even though I’ve just met him 10 minutes ago, and then I’m going to shoot the girl in the face”…
(At 50.10) I do believe that was a crime of passion. Unfortunately, I’ve said it, and I’ll say it again – there’s someone out there that has gotten away with this murder, because just looking at the wounds, especially to Tiffany, they were personal. They were personal, they were personal, you know. That does not happen in a robbery. It just doesn’t happen.’
(See more here.)
Hill also finds it odd that no witnesses reported seeing blood on Willie’s clothes (see more here).
1993 JIMMERSON-JORDAN CASE (BROOKVILLE GARDEN CASE): EXONERATED
Events Leading to Willie’s Conviction
At approximately 8:30 p.m. on January 18, 1993, the bodies of Emmoline Jimmerson and her daughter, Alberta Jordan, were found by neighbors on the floor of their apartment in Building 10D of the Brookville Garden Apartments, Starkville, Mississippi. The women were last seen alive about 3 hours before this. Both were badly beaten with an iron found in a back bedroom of the apartment, and both had suffered slash wounds to the front of their necks.
Issues with this Case
In May 2013 Oktibbeha County Circuit Judge Lee Howard denied Willie a post-hearing memorandum in this case. Appealing this decision, Willie stated in two briefs, submitted December 2013 and May 2014, that this case involved substantial allegations of State misconduct resulting in wrongful conviction. He made the following points:
The oral argument for this case was heard in October 2014; a video showing this can be viewed here, and you can read about it here. The court heard arguments from the defense and the State, focusing on the recanted testimony and the two pieces of evidence that were not available to the trial defense attorneys (police canvass notes and evidence about the size of the shoe print). During the oral argument Justice Dickinson raised the possibility of improper conduct by the State:
“…the two pieces of information that are missing are pieces of information that it seems at least arguable would have been favorable to Mr Manning’s defense. And they’re both missing from the files that were provided to defense counsel. Do you find that odd?” (see October 2014 oral argument video, 1:25.30).
In a 7:2 decision on February 12 2015, the Mississippi Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the Oktibbeha County Circuit Court which had denied Willie post-conviction relief. The Mississippi Supreme Court also reversed Willie’s conviction and sentence and remanded the case to the trial court for a new trial, declaring:
“the State violated Manning’s due-process rights by failing to provide favorable, material evidence.”
You can read a report about the Mississippi Supreme Court’s decision in this case in the Clarion-Ledger.
On April 20 2015 Judge Lee Howard (Oktibbeha County Circuit Court) signed an Order of Nolle Prosequi, stating that “…Due to the fact that a material witness for the state has now changed his testimony in this case on a number of material issues, the State is unable to meet its burden of proof”. In other words, the prosecutor, Forrest Allgood, did not wish to prosecute this case in a new trial; this closes the case. As a result, the Death Penalty Information Center has listed Willie as the 153rd death row exoneree.
The order lists points made by Kevin Lucious in an affidavit that he gave on January 10, 2002, viz.
You can read a report about the prosecutor dropping charges at Jackson Free Press. You can watch a video from an Al Jazeera America program showing Lucious’s former girlfriend describe the pressure to testify against Willie (second video clip on the page); a transcript of this interview is available here.
Other Information about Willie’s Cases
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