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STORY: "Mississippi Supreme Court paves way for new murder trial for Tameshia Shelton," by Jerry Mitchell and Madeline Nguyen, published by Mississippi Today, June 4, 2026. (The stories of investigative reporter Jerry Mitchell have helped put four Klansmen and a serial killer behind bars. His stories have also helped free two people from death row, exposed injustices and corruption, prompting investigations and reforms as well as the firings of boards and officials. He is a Pulitzer Prize finalist, a longtime member of Investigative Reporters & Editors, and a winner of more than 30 other national awards, including a $500,000 MacArthur “genius” grant. After working for three decades for the statewide Clarion-Ledger, Mitchell left in 2019 and founded the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting...Madeline Nguyen joined Mississippi Today in January 2026 after leading local and national investigations at the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at Arizona State University in her hometown of Phoenix. Her award-winning work has uncovered how the Phoenix Police Department edited key moments of police violence out of released body-camera footage, how the Federal Aviation Administration has left aircrews at risk of radiation exposure and how millions of dollars in aid for homeless students went unused.)
GIST: "Tameshia Shelton, a Clay County mother of four serving life in prison on a murder conviction, will finally get what she said she’s been praying for — another day in court to try to prove her innocence.
In a 6-1 vote Thursday, the Mississippi Supreme Court declined to disturb the December decision by the state Court of Appeals ordering a new trial for Shelton. The appeals court held that prosecutors failed to prove Shelton was guilty of murder “beyond a reasonable doubt” when she stood trial in 2015 in the fatal shooting of her youngest sister’s 21-year-old boyfriend, Danelle Young.
“This nightmare is close to being finally over,” her middle sister, Shenikia Shelton, said Thursday. “The missing piece of our family’s puzzle is about to be home.”
The justices’ decision came days after Mississippi Today published its four-year investigation that found that Tameshia Shelton has remained behind bars for 11 years, even though much of the evidence in Young’s 2009 death suggested that he killed himself — including an apparent suicide note never presented to the jury.
Shelton’s trial lawyer, Rod Ray, failed to introduce Young’s apparent suicide note as evidence — a key reason why the courts have ordered a new trial for her. The appeals court found Ray was so “ineffective” as Shelton’s defense attorney that he violated her constitutional right to a fair trial.
Other gaps have emerged in Shelton’s case in the years since her murder trial. The prosecution’s case against her relied upon a deputy state medical examiner’s official ruling that Young’s death was a homicide. The pathologist later called the conclusion an “error” due to lack of experience. Prosecutors also used testimony from Clay County sheriff’s deputies that conflicted with actual records.
“We’re very pleased,” one of Shelton’s current lawyers, Sandra Levick of the Mississippi Innocence Project, said of the Supreme Court decision. “We look forward to Ms. Shelton returning to Clay County where justice can finally be done.”
The case will return to the Clay County Circuit Court and the same trial judge, Circuit Judge James T. Kitchens, who previously denied Shelton a new trial after three days of hearings in 2021 and 2022.
Prosecution would fall to the office of District Attorney Scott Colom, who supported those hearings. In 2021, Kitchens reassigned the case to the attorney general’s office.
Colom could not be reached Thursday for comment, but he previously told Mississippi Today that if the case were returned to his office, he would “look at what the facts show and do justice.”
If Shelton is freed, she would become the seventh person prosecuted in Mississippi’s 16th Judicial District to be exonerated of murder — the most of any district in the state. Like Shelton, the district’s six exonerees were all prosecuted under Colom’s predecessor as district attorney, Forrest Allgood.
Shenikia Shelton said she and her family are “so very happy and thankful to God for everything.”
She thanked her sister’s lawyers and Mississippi Today for “shedding light on the injustices. So many doors have been closed in our faces trying to fight this.”
STORY: "Mississippi Supreme Court paves way for new murder trial for Tameshia Shelton," by Jerry Mitchell and Madeline Nguyen, published by Mississippi Today, June 4, 2026. (The stories of investigative reporter Jerry Mitchell have helped put four Klansmen and a serial killer behind bars. His stories have also helped free two people from death row, exposed injustices and corruption, prompting investigations and reforms as well as the firings of boards and officials. He is a Pulitzer Prize finalist, a longtime member of Investigative Reporters & Editors, and a winner of more than 30 other national awards, including a $500,000 MacArthur “genius” grant. After working for three decades for the statewide Clarion-Ledger, Mitchell left in 2019 and founded the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting...Madeline Nguyen joined Mississippi Today in January 2026 after leading local and national investigations at the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at Arizona State University in her hometown of Phoenix. Her award-winning work has uncovered how the Phoenix Police Department edited key moments of police violence out of released body-camera footage, how the Federal Aviation Administration has left aircrews at risk of radiation exposure and how millions of dollars in aid for homeless students went unused.)
GIST: "Tameshia Shelton, a Clay County mother of four serving life in prison on a murder conviction, will finally get what she said she’s been praying for — another day in court to try to prove her innocence.
In a 6-1 vote Thursday, the Mississippi Supreme Court declined to disturb the December decision by the state Court of Appeals ordering a new trial for Shelton. The appeals court held that prosecutors failed to prove Shelton was guilty of murder “beyond a reasonable doubt” when she stood trial in 2015 in the fatal shooting of her youngest sister’s 21-year-old boyfriend, Danelle Young.
“This nightmare is close to being finally over,” her middle sister, Shenikia Shelton, said Thursday. “The missing piece of our family’s puzzle is about to be home.”
The justices’ decision came days after Mississippi Today published its four-year investigation that found that Tameshia Shelton has remained behind bars for 11 years, even though much of the evidence in Young’s 2009 death suggested that he killed himself — including an apparent suicide note never presented to the jury.
Shelton’s trial lawyer, Rod Ray, failed to introduce Young’s apparent suicide note as evidence — a key reason why the courts have ordered a new trial for her. The appeals court found Ray was so “ineffective” as Shelton’s defense attorney that he violated her constitutional right to a fair trial.
Other gaps have emerged in Shelton’s case in the years since her murder trial. The prosecution’s case against her relied upon a deputy state medical examiner’s official ruling that Young’s death was a homicide. The pathologist later called the conclusion an “error” due to lack of experience. Prosecutors also used testimony from Clay County sheriff’s deputies that conflicted with actual records.
“We’re very pleased,” one of Shelton’s current lawyers, Sandra Levick of the Mississippi Innocence Project, said of the Supreme Court decision. “We look forward to Ms. Shelton returning to Clay County where justice can finally be done.”
The case will return to the Clay County Circuit Court and the same trial judge, Circuit Judge James T. Kitchens, who previously denied Shelton a new trial after three days of hearings in 2021 and 2022.
Prosecution would fall to the office of District Attorney Scott Colom, who supported those hearings. In 2021, Kitchens reassigned the case to the attorney general’s office.
Colom could not be reached Thursday for comment, but he previously told Mississippi Today that if the case were returned to his office, he would “look at what the facts show and do justice.”
If Shelton is freed, she would become the seventh person prosecuted in Mississippi’s 16th Judicial District to be exonerated of murder — the most of any district in the state. Like Shelton, the district’s six exonerees were all prosecuted under Colom’s predecessor as district attorney, Forrest Allgood.
Shenikia Shelton said she and her family are “so very happy and thankful to God for everything.”
She thanked her sister’s lawyers and Mississippi Today for “shedding light on the injustices. So many doors have been closed in our faces trying to fight this.”
The entire story can be read at:
supreme-court-murder-trial-tameshia-shelton
supreme-court-murder-trial-tameshia-shelton
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog. FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."Lawyer Radha Natarajan: Executive Director: New England Innocence Project; FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true;
