UPDATED Tuesday, May 7, 5:07 p.m. EDT: The Mississippi State Supreme Court has granted a stay of execution for death row inmate Willie Jerome Manning, according to the Jackson Free Press. He had been scheduled to be put to death today at 6 p.m. at Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman.
Earlier:
The state of Mississippi is preparing to execute convicted double murderer Willie Jerome Manning, who has been on death row for nearly two decades, despite an unusual admission from the FBI that its original analysis of evidence contained errors, Democracy Now reports.
… Willie Jerome Manning was convicted of murdering Jon Steckler and Tiffany Miller, two white college students, in 1992. The execution is going ahead after prosecutors and state courts refused to allow new DNA testing that could prove Manning's innocence. The Justice Department sent a letter saying one analyst's testimony at trial "exceeded the limits of the science and was, therefore, invalid."
Manning's attorneys argue that no physical evidence ties him to the murders and that testing hair samples and other evidence could identify a different killer. But in a 5-to-4 decision last month, Mississippi's state Supreme Court refused to grant a new DNA test, citing what it called "conclusive, overwhelming evidence of guilt."
Read more at Democracy Now.