Earlier this year, I reported that Owens had not yet filed his mandatory disclosure of last year's campaign spending activity. He filed the report after that.
www.themarshallproject.org/2025/05/12/j...
Owens and his attorneys did not comment for this story.
After his arraignment last year, Owens claimed the indictment against him has "cherry-picked" comments. He said "drunken locker room banter is not a crime."
Mississippi campaigns s are allowed to donate to other campaigns or PACs. An elections law expert said that if the $10,000 went to pay off Lee's campaign debt, the Owens campaign should have identified it as a contribution to Lee.
Of the alleged payment to Lee, the indictments claims Owens stated a need “clean it out.”
“[L]ike we always do, we’ll put it in a campaign account, or directly wire it,” he said, the indictment claims. “[T]hat’s the only way I want the paper trail to look.”
The indictment alleges the payoff was a bribe and that it come out of the campaign account used by Owens.
The Owens campaign reported paying $10,000 on Feb. 15, 2024 to a printing company for "debt retirement."
A federal indictment alleges that on that same day, Owens paid off $10,000 in debt owed by then-City Councilwoman Angelique Lee.
The itemized totals for contributions and expenditures reported on the report's cover sheet don't match the sum of the itemized line-items detailed in the body of the report.
Some highlights:
The Owens campaign reported more in itemized contributions for the year 2024 than in total contributions for the year 2024, which is impossible.
See the full story. Owens has pleaded not guilty.
www.themarshallproject.org/2025/07/18/m...
From me and @ayewolfe.bsky.social :
In Mississippi, District Attorney Jody Owens filed his latest campaign finance report months late. It's full of math errors. The report also contains transactions that correspond to some details from a federal indictment charging Owens with bribery.
Conditions Inside Cuyahoga County Jail Amid Heatwave, No Air Conditioning:
“They had us locked up because they were saying they didn't have enough correctional officers, so they couldn't let us out. It was draining my body.”
www.themarshallproject.org/2025/07/03/c...
To stay up-to-date on this kind of reporting about the justice system issues in Mississippi, sign up for our email newsletter.
www.themarshallproject.org/tag/jackson-...
Docket page with the letter and most recent responsive plans:
www.courts.ms.gov/index.php?cn...
The Supreme Court's letter to local judges is here:
www.courts.ms.gov/appellatecou...
Conservative and progressive legal system reformers have been working on public defense in Mississippi for years. There's a belief among them that momentum is developing to at long last make improvements.
This comes as the Legislature recently agreed to fund a pilot program to boost public defense resources in one rural court district.
www.themarshallproject.org/2025/06/12/m...
“We should have started going court by court and asking them to show us their plans," former chief justice William Waller told me in 2023.
Now, the state's supreme court is doing a version of that.
Back in 2017, the Mississippi Supreme Court first instructed local judges to develop local public defense plans and submit them to the high court.
But as I previously reported in 2023, only a single court at the time had ever followed this directive.
www.themarshallproject.org/2023/09/18/m...
This matters because Mississippi's public defense systems are so decentralized.
A sprawling network of local officials and courts fund and oversee defense for poor defendants, and they've long operated with no oversight.
Full story from me at The Marshall Project.
www.themarshallproject.org/2025/07/02/m...
The Mississippi Supreme Court is now requiring greater transparency from the local judges who largely manage the state's patchwork public defense systems.
In a recent letter, Chief Justice Michael Randolph told circuit judges to file written public defense plans by Sept. 5.
Want to stay current with key news about Mississippi's legal system?
Subscribe to The Marshall Project's email newsletter focused solely on the state.
www.themarshallproject.org/newsletters/...
Then, in an email newsletter out this week, @dajaehenry.com and I highlight three key criminal justices and provided an overview of the latest legislative movement.
www.themarshallproject.org/2025/02/19/t...
Want to know how Mississippi lawmakers might impact the state's legal system?
The Marshall Project's team in Jackson has published a tool you can use to monitor bills that state lawmakers are considering. We'll keep it updated as things change.
The Mississippi Legislature is considering a raft of bills that could impact prisons, policing and courts in the state.
The Marshall Project - Jackson has just published a tool to help you keep up with state lawmakers might do.
www.themarshallproject.org/2025/02/14/m...
Groups question why Wednesday, instead of Thursday is the cutoff for counting absentee votes as a close court election hangs in the balance.
The Marshall Project has a starter pack! go.bsky.app/2oPnQyH
it's stunning that even though most counties reported vote changes during the recount, the overall margin stayed exactly the same. it's an important reminder that recounts are extremely unlikely to produce meaningful changes because it's improbable that most errors will go in the same direction.
