Daily Law Blog

Former Jackson, Mississippi Police Department Officer Is Sentenced for Civil Rights Violation

Jonathan Haynes, a former police officer with the Jackson, Miss., Police Department, was sentenced today for a civil rights violation for stealing money from a citizen during an off-duty encounter. U.S. Magistrate Judge James C. Sumner of the Southern District of Mississippi sentenced Haynes to a term of three years probation and six months home confinement [...]

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Justice Department Files Lawsuit Alleging Racial Discrimination at Mobile Home Park in Gulfport, Mississippi

The Department today filed a lawsuit against the former owner and managers of Homestead Mobile Home Village, a mobile home park in Gulfport, Miss., for violating the Fair Housing Act by discriminating against black tenants on the basis of race or color. The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi charges [...]

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Appeals Court Rejects Challenge to Conviction of Former Mississippi Klansman in 1964 Kidnapping and Murder of Two African American Men

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit today rejected a challenge to the conviction of James Ford Seale, a former member of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan of Mississippi. Seale was convicted by a federal jury in Mississippi in 2007 and sentenced to three life terms in prison. The jury determined [...]

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Justice Department to Monitor Elections in Mississippi

The Justice Department today announced that on May 5, 2009, it will monitor municipal elections in the towns of Cleveland, Como, Meridian and Sardis, Miss., to ensure compliance with the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Under the Voting Rights Act, the Justice Department is authorized to ask the U.S. Office of Personnel Management to send federal [...]

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Former Mendenhall, Mississippi, Police Chief Sentenced for Using Excessive Force

A federal judge today sentenced Jimmy “Jimbo” Sullivan, the former chief of police in Mendenhall, Miss., to 30 months in prison for using excessive force when he repeatedly stomped on the head of an arrestee, announced Acting Assistant Attorney General Loretta King for the Civil Rights Division and Acting U.S. Attorney Stan Harris for the [...]

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