Jackson Free Press

When Stephen Simpson stands over you with his 6-foot-7-inch frame, you might want to think twice before disagreeing with him. The Republican will tell you that "it's easy being on the right side," and makes no apologies or excuses for his position on issues. Perhaps it's his boisterous confidence that has aided his career as he progressed from attorney to circuit-court judge and Department of Public Safety commissioner. The former high-school basketball player is now looking to unseat incumbent Attorney General Jim Hood, a Democrat, in the Nov. 8 elections.

In 1990, the Long Beach native opened a law firm, Simpson & Simpson with his brother, Tim, in Gulfport. He served as assistant district attorney for the Second Circuit Court of Mississippi, which consists of Hancock, Harrison and Stone counties, from 1992 to 1996. In 2000 Gov. Ronnie Musgrove appointed Simpson to serve as Second Circuit Court judge, where he presided until 2008. That year, Gov. Haley Barbour appointed Simpson to serve as Department of Public Safety commissioner. He stepped down from that position in February 2011 to run for attorney general.

Simpson now consults for L-1 Identity Solutions, which specializes in driver's licenses and license kiosks for Department of Motor Vehicles throughout the country, including Mississippi. Last week, Hood's campaign criticized Simpson for accepting a contract with L-1 because the Department of Public Safety renewed a contract with the company when Simpson was still commissioner. Simpson responded that his contract began in June and specifically states that he cannot do consulting work in Mississippi.

Why do you want to run for attorney general?
The attorney general's office serves as the chief prosecutor of the state. I think it's a job I have been preparing for my entire adult career. I guess that the best way to say it is that there are few opportunities where, at the end of the day, you have made your community and state a safe place to live and work and raise a family. That's what I have been doing for many years and what I want to continue to do.

What did you accomplish as public safety commissioner?
I'd probably have to say that in the three years plus I served as commissioner, it's really been the toughest economic times in our state since maybe the Great Depression. We led a law enforcement agency with 600 guys whose virtual office is a patrol car. We have had tremendous expense in fuel, training, guns and all of those things it takes to run an agency of that size. I took a 5 percent budget cut my first year, a 6.7 percent (cut) my second year, and we started my third year with a 10 percent reduction from where we started the year before. We were able to fulfill all the missions of the highway patrol, (and the) bureau of investigations and narcotics without one single furlough and without laying anyone off or reducing hours. ... .

We also passed landmark legislation ... We had an epidemic crystal-meth problem in this state, and we took on Merck and Pfizer drug companies that came into the state with a giant campaign and budget. We won that battle. We put Sudafed behind the counter as a prescription-only drug and gave law enforcement the upper hand in that drug war for the first time ever. ... I also hired the first medical examiner since 1995.

Did you have to cut any salaries or decrease pay for employees?
No. No one took one dime of reduction in salaries.

Did you or any of your employees receive a raise?
No. We weren't able to do that. The appropriations bill that the Legislature passed over several years says: "Here, Steve, here is your appropriation. But here is a provision that freezes staff increases, longevity increases and salary increases." Not only would it have been imprudent to do that, the Legislature froze those types of things.

And yourself?
I guess you are asking about the story that alleged I got a pay raise. I was an elected circuit-court judge on the Gulf Coast when Haley Barbour called me and said, "I'd like to talk to you about accepting an appointment as commissioner of the Department of Public Safety." I was offered a particular salary to become commissioner. I ultimately accepted the appointment. ... In the first month, it was brought to my attention by the state personnel board that the board requirements and law did not allow for the governor to hire me at the salary he offered me. ... Every state job has a start step, and then there is a cap. You would think someone who hired you could offer you anything within that start and cap. But the state personnel board ruled that for the first year you may not be compensated more than the midpoint between those. They said you have to take the midpoint and on your 12-month anniversary, you can get paid what he offered you. ... Some people have characterized that as a pay raise. It wasn't.

How would you strengthen domestic-violence laws and improve the AG's domestic-violence unit?
It's very important to me, the issue of domestic violence. The financial resources, the grants that operate the AG's domestic-violence unit actually come from the Department of Public Safety. We were obviously happy to and recognize the importance of adequately funding that. ... Education and awareness is important. One of the biggest problems with domestic violence is that a lot of it doesn't get reported. My experience in law enforcement, as a judge and prosecutor, tells me there are a lot of incidents that go unreported. We need to continue to do education and awareness and make facilities and resources such as hotlines available so victims have a place to turn.

In 2008, you removed Steven Hayne from the list of medical examiners the state could use after reports of questionable testimony ...
Well, let me make sure you are clear on that. These allegations about credibility of his testimony, and in fact the review of the two cases on death row that were reversed and rendered, took place before my appointment. His contract came up for renewal shortly after I became commissioner. I had reviewed the medical examiner's office and its staff. ...

When his contract came up for renewal, I elected not to renew it. His contract required a 60-day notification that we were not going to renew it. In addition to that, he had several hundred—close to 600 cases—where the autopsy protocol, which is the report of the proceeding, had not been generated or provided to the state medical examiner's office. Because he wasn't going to be with us for more than 60 days, I went ahead and removed him from the list and said, "You need to spend the 60 days getting those reports you owe us." It wasn't so much that I removed him because of all this bad press. Bad press was going on. His contract came up for renewal at a time when I decided we needed to fulfill the mission of the state medical examiner's office.

Do you think the cases where he has performed autopsies should be investigated?
Some of them already have been reviewed. Tucker Carrington of the Innocence Project has somewhere spearheaded public awareness of some of Mississippi's death investigation problems. They specifically pointed to some credibility issues they allege with Hayne. As a former prosecutor and judge, it's pretty rare that the linchpin evidence against an accused person is the medical examiner's testimony, and there is no other physical forensic evidence such as blood or fingerprints, hair fibers or an eyewitness or a statement by the accused. As attorney general, clearly those cases where his testimony was the only evidence that the jury weighed and convinced them beyond a reasonable doubt, then, given those cases, maybe they should be reviewed. But there are going to be pretty limited cases.

What were the obstacles for hiring a medical examiner and setting up an office in Mississippi?
Salaries. As I interviewed and recruited pathologists from around the country, I brought quite a few to our state to review the facilities and talk with me. The Legislature at the time did increase the budget for the medical examiner's office. They took some money out of this NASCAR tag fund—people pay extra to get a NASCAR tag. They took some money and earmarked it for the medical examiner's office. The facilities were an issue. We have a medical examiner's office that is attached to the crime lab at headquarters on Woodrow Wilson (Avenue). That building was built in 1976, and it's pretty outdated and extremely crowded. ... It's an accomplishment I'm proud of. I obtained about $40 million in bond money, and ground has broken, and construction is beginning on a new 90,000-square-foot office building in Pearl.

You criticized Hood this week for receiving campaign donations from lawyers who were filing suits against BP. Gov. Barbour had asked him not to wait to file suit so that he would not jeopardize the claims process. What would you have done differently regarding BP?
If Jim Hood is suggesting that the reason he didn't file against BP was because he had a moment of clarity and confidence in Gov. Barbour, I think that's a little incredulous. He's never done anything else that the governor has asked him to do. I wish he had that moment of clarity when he asked him to join 26 other states and attack the Obama health-care plan. On that occasion, he didn't follow the governor's request of advice. I think it's pretty clear if you look at the campaign contributions and who gave them to him that his motive in waiting to file was to dangle this litigation as a carrot out there during this campaign year and to raise funds. If you look at the millions of dollars in attorneys' fees that have flown outside of Mississippi's border to these out-of-state firms for the lucrative contracts, ... I think it speaks for itself. Alabama filed against BP 10 months before. Louisiana filed 11 months before Jim Hood took any action. Even as we sit here today, the attorney general's action has been against (BP Escrow Fund Administrator Kenneth) Feinberg and the claims process, not BP or Transocean.

So you would have filed against BP sooner?
I would have. I wouldn't have waited. The claims process is a voluntary program. It's $20 billion that BP gave the government, and the government's set up this claims process. Why he is going after Feinberg and not in federal court with these neighboring states raises serious questions.

Local media have questioned your use of state aircraft.
Actually for clarification, no local media questioned me about my use of aircraft. ... They put something on a blog like 'Simpson uses an airplane like a taxi.' The records will show that I used not the state aircraft but aircraft that belongs to the Department of Public Safety. We have constant access to it. I used a fraction of (what) my predecessor (used). I used it very sparingly.

You remember this state budget crisis we were in for several years? I even tried to sell it. We actually advertised it for sale for a brief time. I negotiated with the University of Mississippi Medical Center for a long time, but they couldn't raise the money to buy it.

Even the blog report acknowledged that I never used it on weekends, and there was no allegation I went to a football game or a Las Vegas junket.

The blog went as far as to say, "It doesn't appear that he ever used it for personal use, but he did go to a few funerals." Well, one of those was Master Sgt. Steve Hood, a 28-year highway patrolman who was in a high-speed pursuit and killed in the line of duty. My wife and I were picked up and flown to his funeral. We live in Gulfport, and the funeral was in New Albany. I went to another funeral—a Department of Public Safety, Bureau of Narcotics lawyer that was killed.

[Editor's note: The Sun Herald in Biloxi questioned Simpson about the aircraft-use allegations on Sept. 12, several days before this interview.]

You also criticized your opponent this week for using taxpayer money to fund gym memberships for attorney general office employees. His campaign said it was a program the state Legislature passed.
That's not what the program was intended to do. When Marsha Barbour was doing "Let's Go Walking" commercials, that didn't mean walk on down to the club and spend $13,000 of taxpayer money for your employees and $10,000 on a Weight Watchers contract. There were three contracts: $12,969 each to three separate gyms in the Jackson metro area and $10,000 Weight Watchers contracts. That's almost $50,000 of taxpayer money, when I'm trying to keep troopers on the road, narcotics agents in school districts and fighting a crystal-meth problem. Yeah, I was critical of it. (read Hood Vs. Simpson.)

Is it safe to say that's something you will eliminate if you are elected?
It's something I bet will be eliminated before this election is over. Even though the duration of the contract is through June 30, I'll be shocked if he continues to try and justify that public money. But to answer your question, yes.

Obesity is a problem in our state, and many agencies have started to implement health programs for their employees. Would you?
I would do actually what the Legislation intended to do to make employees more health conscious to promote self-awareness and responsibility. For that kind of money, they could have put a gym in the AG's office. I'm not suggesting that would have been a good use of public money. But really there needs to be personal responsibility and personal awareness.

How would you improve the attorney general's cyber-crime unit?
It would be hard to say until I get into office and examine exactly what the AG's cyber-crime unit is doing. I hear an awful lot about their office and all of their successes and investigations. Not this past July, but a year ago at the state bar convention, I attended a state prosecutors meeting where two employees did a presentation on the AG's cyber-crime unit. Someone inquired about the number of employees in the unit, and it was both of them—those two guys. I don't know if that was the case, I don't have access to their unit. But it seems to me considering the growing technology and the potential dangers of these chat rooms and sexual predators that surely the cyber-crime unit has more than two employees. I'm guessing it does. I'm not saying it doesn't. I'm saying that (at) the time, they had two employees there. It needs to be adequately funded. There are federal and state funds that can fund that office, and it needs to be adequately staffed.

[Editor's note: The cyber-crime unit currently has 14 employees and had at least 10 employees in July 2010 during the time Simpson mentions.]

It's my understanding that the Mississippi Court of Appeals overturned a ruling on a case you presided over, in which Edna Mae Sanders poured hot cooking oil on her husband and killed him. The court stated that not all the evidence was introduced to the jury about her defending herself. Can you respond to that?
[The] jury reached a verdict in this case—they convicted Ms. Sanders of murder—and I sentenced her. ... The court of appeals found reason to reverse the case, which means it goes back to Hancock County for a new trial. Since that time, the Mississippi Supreme Court, in fact the AG's office, petitioned the Mississippi Supreme Court to review the court of appeals' decision, saying it was erroneous. The court has accepted review of that case, and it is before them now. It may be that the case will be affirmed and her conviction stands, or they may agree with the court of appeals and send it back to a new trial. So that you are clear, the case is still on appeal. (see below)

Can you talk about the circumstance of the court of appeals ruling?
There was a great deal of discussion about the Castle Doctrine. The Castle Doctrine says that if you are in a place you have a lawful right to be—particularly your home—and you are confronted with a threat with injury or death, you can use reasonable force to defend yourself. The problem I had with the testimony was that there was no evidence to support it.

You have to remember that there was a dying declaration from Mr. Sanders, the deceased—(who) was standing there with his skin dripping off of him because this hot boiling oil had been poured on him—that he was asleep in the bed, and his wife poured hot oil on him. He died days later. The physical evidence at the time shows the bed with skin and oil in the bed and on the wall where it had splattered. ... It supported his dying declaration that he'd been laying down in the bed.

The evidence was that there had been an argument between them. He had gone to bed, and she boiled this oil and went to the back and poured it on him. At trial for the first time ever, she said he went to the back to get a gun. She had never said that to the police. No one else had ever said that to police. The daughter, who was present, never said that to police. In fact, no gun had been found in the home. It was inconsistent with the physical evidence that he was laying down in the bed asleep.

There were other allegations about sexual assault on the girl that occurred. That had never been reported to police. The girl had never made those allegations. The mother at the time of arrest had not made the allegations. You have to remember that they are in a house, where even by her own admission, he was in the back bedroom. ... All she had to do was walk out the front door. If she believed he was going to the back and get a gun, why didn't she just get her daughter and go out the front door? ... The problem was that it was inconsistent with the evidence. He was deceased, so there was no way for the prosecution to rebut this evidence that was being tendered for the first time, so I excluded it.

In 2006 you gave previously convicted-felon Jerry Manieri a two-year sentence for child molestation—the minimum sentence. In July, he was arrested in the shooting death of a Louisiana priest. Explain why that sentence was appropriate.
The time that this case came before the court happened to be the time I was there. If it had happened during the next month it would have been a different judge. My point is that the assistant district attorney and the defense attorney both came to my chambers before court started and said, "Look, we have a case on the docket today, and it's supposed to go to trial. The victim is a fairly young girl who is reluctant to testify. Will not testify. She's telling me that she won't to forward, and if I put her on the witness stand, she isn't going to say anything. The only other witness, who is not a witness to the assault, but whose testimony I might could offer because it's the mother of the child who the child told that this happened to, did not report it to the police when it happened. Instead she went—by her own admission, and what the police reports are going to show—went out and smoked doped with the defendant. She went out weeks later and reported it. So she has no credibility with us. There is no medical evidence. The victim was seen by a doctor and sexual-assault nurse examiner, and there was no evidence to support the sexual assault." ... We did not have a case we could put before 12 reasonably fair minded people and expect to get a conviction of this guy. That isn't to say that he didn't do something wrong. If we can convince 12 jurors, he was looking at 20 years in prison. Rather than take that chance, he is willing to plead guilty and take a two-year sentence with one suspended, spend a year in the penitentiary and be registered as a sex offender from now on, so we can keep up with him and know where he is and what he is doing, and we are willing to make that recommendation.

... When he got out of jail, he absconded, which means he ran off. He left the jurisdiction. He didn't register with local law enforcement. He ran off to another state where he was arrested, served another sentence and eventually came back to Mississippi and got into this incident where he accused of killing a priest. I don't know how I could have foreseen four years after pleading guilty that he would be charged with a homicide, any more than anyone else I sentenced that day.

Do you think there is anything the courts or the prison system could have done to prevent this?
I only know from having read a news article that Commissioner Chris Epps at the Department of Corrections said his department dropped the ball to the extent that when (Manieri) ran off and didn't report for probation, they failed to put that into the system and get an arrest warrant for him into the national computer data base. ... Could anyone have done anything to anticipate that six years later he would shoot somebody?

Any other priorities if you're elected?
We talked about the Obama health-care thing. Clearly, I would join litigation to test lawfulness of that action. Three appellate courts and a number of other federal courts have said it's unconstitutional. The governor asked the attorney general (to help stop the health-care reform bill), and he said no. I would represent the will of most Mississippians and join that litigation and find out if it's legal.

Your opponent has taken on a lot of corporate fraud cases and won several million dollars for the state. How will you fight corporate fraud?
Same thing. It doesn't matter if it's an individual such as Robbie Bell who should have been submitted to a jury for letting (Heather Spencer, murdered by her son, George Bell III) die in her house. It doesn't matter if it's that or a corporation overcharging for software technology or pharmaceuticals or whatever it is. You pursue criminal acts wherever you find them and whoever they are. And that's something (Hood) hasn't done. And if you find it, why not prosecute it yourself? Why go to California or New York and say, "I want you guys to do it for me." At least if you are going to bring in help, bring in Mississippi lawyers.

[Editor's note: Legal experts say Robbie Bell was not prosecuted as an accessory in the death of Heather Spencer due to insufficient evidence. Mississippi does not have a "Good Samaritan" law, which could have forced Bell to seek help for Spencer. All parties agreed that Bell did not do the right thing in the case; however, she apparently did not break any existing state laws.]

Do you think there is any advantage to having an outside perspective from legal counsel?
Whoever comes here to prosecute a case on behalf of Mississippians is going to have to apply Mississippi law; they aren't going to apply New York or California law. I do understand that there are some cases that are so complex in nature, be it a financial case or a securities case or medical case against a pharmaceutical manufacturer. ... I understand that there are doubtful claims, and you may need to find someone outside the attorney general's office to prosecute that case on behalf of Mississippians. But you will never convince me that there aren't good competent lawyers in Mississippi that ought to be given a preference to that.

Anything else you'd like to add?
I really hope and continue to hope that this race will be about our education, experience, accomplishments, and what we have done in our professional careers and what we will do for Mississippians in the future. It's already getting a little nasty. I expect that's the way it's going to be that way until Election Day. ... I think I have been preparing for this and that I am very well qualified.

Simpson's Top Contributors
Here is a list of top contributors to Friends of the Steve Simpson Candidate Political Committee through July 29, 2011:

John Dane, owner and president of Trinity Yachts, $10,000
Larry Johnson, owner of Landmark Companies, $10,000
John Sneed, president of Bancorp South Insurance Services, $5,000
Doug Lanier, physician, $5,000
MS GOP Political Action Committee, $5,000
Homebuilders Association of Mississippi Political Action Committee $5,000
David Blaine, Owner of Edgewater Cleaners, $5,000
Kevin Carter, self-employed, $5,000
Michael Strojny, self employed CPA, $5,000

The Edna Mae Sanders Case
In April 2008, a Hancock County jury found Edna Mae Sanders guilty of the murder of her husband, Sherman Sanders. He died after she doused him with boiling cooking oil. Simpson, whom Gov. Haley Barbour appointed to serve as Department of Public Safety commissioner a month later, sentenced her to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The wife testified that she poured oil on her husband in an act of defense after her husband sexually assaulted her 13-year-old daughter and threatened Edna Mae's life. Simpson prevented testimony about the husband's violent tendencies, as well as the wife's discovery of Sherman raping her daughter that night. Prosecutors argued Edna Mae could have fled while her husband went to allegedly grab his gun.

The Mississippi Court of Appeals overturned Sanders' conviction, saying the Simpson court should have told the jury that the law did not require Edna Mae Sanders to retreat from her home when she felt threatened, and for excluding evidence in support of her theory of self-defense.

The Mississippi Supreme Court will soon decide whether to grant Sanders a retrial or uphold Simpson's ruling.

In this interview, Simpson said neither Sanders nor her daughter told police about the alleged rape at the time and that he excluded the testimony because it did not match the evidence. He also said law enforcement did not find a gun in the home.

Sanders' attorney Brian Alexander disagrees with Simpson's assessment, saying the appeals court ruling had nothing to do with what Sanders had said prior to her testimony at the hearing. "His premise is misleading ... at least 50 percent of defendants never make a statement to police before trial," Alexander said this week.

Alexander said the appeal court found enough evidence to show thatSherman Sanders had been violent toward his wife the night of the incident. "(The court of appeals) can see Sherman Sanders instigated a fight. Simpson is out in left field in his conclusion," Alexander added.

Related Links
Hood Vs. Simpson

Previous Comments

ID

165093

Comment

Okay, so with Hood and Simpson being apparently corrupt and Simpson wanting to oppose the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Is there ANYONE else I can vote for?

Author

BobbyKearan

Date

2011-09-29T13:35:27-06:00