Death row inmate asks Supreme Court to hear oral arguments

Yahoo

25-02-2025

JACKSON – Attorneys for death row inmate Charles Ray Crawford want the state's highest court to hear oral arguments in the latest appeal of his 30-year-old capital murder conviction and death sentence.
Defense attorneys with the Mississippi Office of Capital Post-Conviction Counsel argue that three decades ago, Crawford's attorneys admitted his guilt and pursued an unwanted insanity defense over Crawford's repeated objections before and during the capital murder trial. That act denied Crawford his constitutional entitlement to decide how he was represented.
Late last year, Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch petitioned the Supreme Court to set an execution date. About three weeks later, the defense team filed a motion for Crawford's third post-conviction relief effort, bringing up the unwanted insanity defense for the first time.
'Before the court executes a person with such a substantial claim for post-conviction relief, … the court should at a minimum hear oral argument on the matter,' lead defense attorney Krissy Nobile said in the motion filed last week. 'All in all, Crawford should not have been forced to undergo a trial in which his own lawyer served as a second prosecutor advocating his guilt to the jury. The issues presented in Crawford's petition for post-conviction relief warrant oral argument.'
Crawford, 59, admitted he kidnapped, raped and killed Northeast Mississippi Community College coed Kristy Ray, 20, more than 30 years ago. A jury found him guilty of capital murder and sentenced him to death in April 1994, but legal wrangling over the years has kept him out of the death chamber at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman.
Defense attorneys say disregarding the PCR claim would create a federal due process issue.
The state holds the position that the latest PCR is 'barred and meritless' and 'can be viewed as merely a delay tactic.'
'His third PCR motion filed 30 years (after the 1994 conviction and death sentence) is clearly outside the time allowed by law,' and should not be considered, the attorney general argued.
Crawford ran out of appeals on the capital murder conviction in 2014, so he appealed a separate rape conviction, which the state used in arguing for the death penalty. The federal appeal was initially denied in U.S. District Court, but the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to hear the case. The New Orleans-based court heard oral arguments in October 2023 and issued an 11-4 ruling denying the appeal in November 2024.
The same day the appeal was denied, Nov. 22, 2024, Fitch filed a motion asking the Mississippi Supreme Court to set an execution date.