For Justice Michael Randolph of the Mississippi Supreme Court, a legal opinion wasn’t just a place to explain why his eight colleagues were mistaken in staying an execution — it was a forum to vent wide-ranging criticism of the U.S. Justice Department.
The court voted 8-1 on Tuesday to stay the day’s scheduled execution of Willie Jerome Manning, following acknowledgments by the Federal Bureau of Investigation of errors in agents’ testimony that helped convict Mr. Manning in 1994 of murdering two college students.
The FBI, citing time constraints, reevaluated the evidence against Mr. Manning with assistance from the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the Innocence Project, both of which are critical of the death penalty.
Judge Randolph objected to that partnership, and then, with a single bullet, managed to hit the Justice Department’s conduct in the bungled Fast and Furious gun-trafficking sting and its policies in domestic terrorism cases.
“Although the connectivity and expediency by which this review was accomplished is mind boggling,” Justice Randolph wrote, “I should not be surprised, given that the families of the clandestine ‘Fast and Furious’ gun running operation can’t get the Department of Justice to identify the decision makers (whose actions resulted in the death of a border agent and many others) after years of inquiry, and that this is the same Department of Justice that enforces Miranda warnings to foreign enemy combatants.”
The Justice Department and FBI declined to comment on Judge Randolph’s non sequitur. The court’s majority also held its tongue, simply stating that “after due consideration,” the motion to stay the execution was granted, “pending further Order of this Court.”
Justice Randolph hinted, however, that me might soon have more to say on the topic of the Justice Department’s inadequacies, as he sees them.
“There exists a host of other legal and factual issues, but time allocated to write is so compressed due to last minute filings, and I shall more fully address these deficiencies when the opportunity presents itself.”