An Innocent Woman? Michelle Byrom vs. Mississippi
Read Ronni Mott's March 19, 2014, story in the JFP that brought international attention to the tragic case of Michelle Byrom.
JACKSON — In a highly unusual decision, the nine justices of the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled Monday to reverse the conviction of Michelle Byrom, 57, who has been on death row awaiting execution for the past 14 years.
In the court's unanimous decision, Justice Josiah Coleman wrote: "The relief afforded herein is extraordinary and extremely rare in the context of a petition for leave to pursue post-conviction relief."
The court also ordered a new trial with a new judge.
"The whole decision was surprising, from the fact that it was handed down on a Monday, which is very unusual for the court in a non-emergency manner, to the recusal of the trial judge, which is also fairly unusual, through the relief that they granted," former Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Oliver Diaz Jr. told the Jackson Free Press today.
"To reverse the conviction and send it back for a new trial at this stage, the whole scope and breadth of the decision is really surprising at this point. It's not something that's normally done by the court."
Byrom had nearly exhausted her options. In her original trial in Tishomingo County, she was convicted in an alleged murder-for-hire plot in the 1999 death of her husband, Edward Byrom Sr. Sentenced to die by lethal injection, Michelle Byrom appealed her case to the Mississippi Supreme Court three times, once on direct appeal and twice more in post-conviction appeals. Each time, the court upheld the conviction.
When the U.S. Supreme Court declined Feb. 24 to hear the case, Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood requested a March 27 execution date. That day, Byrom's attorney, David Calder of Oxford, Miss., received a slim ray of hope when the state court denied Hood's request.
Court records reveal that Byrom's original attorneys, who were trying their first capital case, made numerous errors that led Byrom to death row.
In letters to his mother, Bryom's son, Edward Byrom Jr., detailed killing his father after Edward Byrom Sr. verbally berated and slapped him around.
"As I sat on my bed, tears of rage flowing, remembering my childhood, my anger kept building and building, and I went to my car, got the 9mm, and walked to his room, peeked in, and he was asleep," Edward Jr. wrote. "I walked about 2 steps in the door, and screamed, and shut my eyes, when I heard him move, I started firing."
Under questioning from Tishomingo County Sheriff David Smith, Edward Jr. made up "a bullsh*t story after another, trying to save my own ass," he wrote. "... I was so scared, confused, and high, I just started spitting the first thought out, which turned in to this big conspiracy thing, for money, which was all BS."
Based on Edward Jr.'s "bullsh*t story," the sheriff arrested him, his best friend Joey Gillis and Michelle Byrom as co-conspirators. Allegedly, Michelle Byrom was the conspiracy's mastermind, hiring Gillis to murder her husband and planning to pay him from the proceeds of Edward Byrom Sr.'s life insurance policy. Gillis was the alleged killer, and Edward Jr. allegedly helped Gillis dispose of the murder weapon, a World War II-era 9mm Luger pistol.
Prosecutor Arch Bullard sought to prove that theory of the case in court. Bullard made a deal with Edward Jr. in exchange for his testimony against his mother. Michelle Byrom's lawyers believed they could use Edward Jr.'s letters to impeach him during cross-examination, but Circuit Court judge Thomas Gardner would not allow the jury to see the letters. Instead, he admonished the defense for not revealing them to the prosecution earlier.
Although Edward Jr.'s letters may have been a surprise to Bullard, the written confessions were not a surprise to Gardner. Byrom's son had confessed to W. Criss Lott, a court-appointed forensic psychologist. Lott did not include the confession in his report to the court, but he did tell Gardner, who withheld it from the defense and the jury.
"I contacted the presiding Judge and asked him what I should do in the hypothetical situation where I had received specific information about the facts and details of a crime during the course of a forensic evaluation for mental competency and sanity," Lott said in a Feb. 3 affidavit.
"The Judge told me I should tell him what I knew and so I told him about Edward Byrom Jr.'s confession to me that he had killed his father."
Without Edward Jr.'s confessions, the jury only heard him accuse his mother of the conspiracy. They returned a guilty verdict.
Michelle Byrom's attorneys then waived her right to have a jury hear the sentencing phase of the trial, and they failed to call any witnesses to corroborate Byrom's claims of domestic and sexual abuse or the resulting mental illness, although several such witnesses were available. Gardner sentenced her to death.
"Every time this case has come before the court, there has been very, very strong dissent in this case," said Diaz, who wrote a column for the Jackson Free Press last week on Byrom's behalf.
"Some of the judges at the court, every time this case has been before the court, have seen the major errors that were committed in the trial of this case and in the appeal of this case. ... It may have been the only 5-4 death-penalty case that we handed down while I was on the court. This is not your typical case. Lots of judges had problems with it when they reviewed it on appeal at the supreme court. Even when the court was affirming the case, there were still very strong judges who were dissenting."
Edward Jr. and Gillis both served time for the alleged conspiracy and are now free men. In a 2001 interview with The Daily Corinthian, Bullard said Gillis was not the shooter, an admission he now denies.
"We are pleased that the Mississippi Supreme Court has granted Michelle Byrom's request for relief from her death sentence," Calder said in a statement. "This was a team effort on the part of the attorneys currently representing Ms. Byrom, and we believe that the Court reached a just and fair result in light of the facts presented in this case. We are pleased that Ms. Byrom will now have the opportunity to have a new trial with effective legal representation, and that she will be given the chance to prove that she is not guilty of committing 'murder for hire.'"
National media attention drew intense focus to the case after the Jackson Free Press broke the story March 19. Outraged citizens began a call-in campaign the governor's office and volunteered to work on Byrom's behalf.
"It went viral very quickly, once people started paying attention," Warren Yoder said. "It went down to the very last minute, which was a little scary, but I'm delighted with the result." Yoder provided information to the Jackson Free Press to help bring publicity to the case.
Hood released a statement saying that he has asked the court to specify its reasons for the reversal. The court also denied Hood an execution date for Charles Ray Crawford, whose case is on appeal as well. Byrom's new trial date has not been set.
Oxford lawyer Tom Freeland has written extensively about Byrom's ineffective counsel on his blog, NMissCommentor. Monday, Freeland expressed amazement at the 11th-hour reversal.
"This is extraordinary and unprecedented to my knowledge," he wrote, adding, "Next time someone says that a death sentence is fine because of all the judges who looked at it, remember Michelle Byrom."
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