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The Mississippi Supreme Court stayed the execution of Willie Jerome Manning, who was scheduled to die Tuesday night at 6 at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman.

Manning was convicted in 1994 of killing two Mississippi State students in front of the campus’ Sigma Chi fraternity house.

Justices voted 8-1 to issue the stay. Justice Michael Randolph, of Hattiesburg, dissented.

Randolph was critical of the court’s decision, writing that Manning had failed to comply with the statutory requirements attached to his claim that DNA testing on a hair found in one of the victim’s cars could possibly exonerate him.  Randolph took particular issue with letters submitted with the hair analysis from the U.S. Department of Justice that were unsigned.

“The letters challenge not only former FBI experts in hair, but also ballistics. Our established law and justice require more,” Randolph wrote in his opinion.

Randolph also pointed out what he felt were discrepancies in one of the DOJ letters, which said mitochondrial DNA testing became routine in 2000. Randolph cited an article published by the DOJ in 1999 that said the testing became routine in 1992, and would have been available for Manning’s 1994 trial, if he had asked that it be done.

The DOJ’s controversial “Fast and Furious” gun-running program also made an appearance in Randolph’s dissent. The program was initiated in 2009 to track Mexican drug cartel leadership, but the DOJ lost track of almost 2,000 weapons, one of which was used to kill a border agent in 2010. Congressional GOP leaders have complained since that pinpointing exactly who is responsible for the botched operation has been difficult due to DOJ stonewalling.

Randolph compares that to the FBI’s recently asking anti-death penalty group the Innocence Project to assist with the Manning hair analysis process due to his execution date being close.

“Although the connectivity and expediency by which this review was accomplished is mind boggling, I should not be surprised, given that the families of victims 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 grants and enforces Miranda warnings to foreign enemy combatants,” Randolph wrote.

The entire order granting the stay and Randolph’s dissent can be read here.

UPDATE: Attorney General Jim Hood has issued a statement. Here it is, verbatim:

I am sorry that the victims’ families will have to continue to live this 20 plus year nightmare.  Out of an abundance of caution, our Court stayed the sentence until it had time to review this flurry of last minute filings.  Yesterday evening our office filed a report with the Court, which I obtained from the district attorney’s office around 6:00 yesterday afternoon.  The  report states that there was no serological evidence from the victims’ fingernail scrapings or semen on the vaginal swabs from the rape test kit for a DNA test to identify. 

After having an opportunity to consider this new evidence, the senior attorneys in this office believe our Court will dissolve the stay and the sentence will be carried out.  If, however, our Court orders that these items be retested, then we will carry out that order. 

 I am in conversations with the DOJ and FBI to determine how these last minute letters came about.  After conversing with expert witnesses at our Crime Lab, it is clear that FBI experts and experts in all states used more conclusive language in their testimony up until around the time the 2009 National Academy of Science report was issued on forensics.  Since then the policy of many experts has been to qualify their testimony by using the magic words “to a reasonable degree of scientific certainty”.  The FBI agents in this case were simply following the standards used in their fields at the time. 

The letters sent from the forensic taskforce chairman at DOJ, merely state that the science was not that exact in 1993, not that these agents were not following the standard followed by all of their colleagues at the time, both state and federal, in testifying to the degree of certainty.

Mississippi manufacturing leaders will assemble next week at Mississippi State to assess the state’s manufacturing sector and kick around ways to grow it.

The third annual Manufacturing Summit is hosted by MSU’s Franklin Furniture Institute and the American Home Furnishings Alliance. It starts at 8:30 the morning of March 27 and runs through 4:30 that afternoon.

On the agenda will be ways to expand Mississippi manufacturing, which currently accounts for 12 percent of non-farm employment, according to state figures. MSU president Mark Keenum will open the event. Gov. Phil Bryant will deliver the keynote address.

The summit will include two panel discussions, one on possible collaborations between manufacturers and federal agencies meant to accelerate industry growth. The other will center on the implications of the Affordable Care Act.

Speakers include representatives from the U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Appalachian Regional Commission, Delta Regional Authority, MSU faculty experts and leaders of the state’s manufacturing and furniture industries. The program will also touch on global manufacturing competitiveness, consumer buying attitudes and behavior, skilled labor shortages and industry regulations.

Registration is $99 for members of the American Home Furnishings Association and $139 for non-members.  Registration is available online at www.ffi.msstate.edu.

Sponsors of the event include CertiPUR-US, the Mississippi Manufacturers Association, the MSU Forest and Wildlife Research Center and the MSU Extension Service.

Work on the 44-mile Tanglefoot Trail has reached Chickasaw County, where it will end in downtown Houston.

The recreational trail, which runs from New Albany to Houston, is the old Gulf Mobile and Ohio railroad. It’s modeled after South Mississippi’s Longleaf Trace, and is expected to have a similar economic impact, estimated at $5 million annually, and mainly driven by users, estimated at 100,000 per year.

The prospects of development around the trail have officials in Union, Pontotoc and Chickasaw counties excited. To go about that as smartly as possible, Mississippi State University’s Carl Small Town Center is running test scenarios related to different methods of growing the adjacent areas. Researchers are using first-of-its-kind software to determine best-case scenarios. Details can be found in this Mississippi Business Journal story from September.

The Chickasaw Journal, one of the MBJ’s sister publications, has the details on the trail entering its final stages of preliminary construction here. Its opening is scheduled for late spring or early summer 2013.

The economic damage from Sandy, which meteorologists and scientists dubbed “Frankenstorm” before and during her strike on the Northeastern U.S. Monday, will likely take months to calculate.

Mississippi State University economists said Tuesday that, like the storm surge in Manhattan and along the Jersey Shore, Sandy’s financial impact could be historic. Part of that will be the losses incurred by the New York Stock Exchange’s closure Monday and Tuesday.

“It’s very rare for the markets to close, even for a weather event,” said Mike Highfield, associate professor of finance and head of Mississippi State University’s Department of Finance and Economics.

The last time markets closed due to weather was 1888. Officials announced Tuesday morning that they would reopen Wednesday.

Based on history, Highfield said the reopening could produce less-than-desirable results. “Many times we see a fall when the stock market does reopen, mainly because of the event itself which caused the closure.”

Because Sandy made landfall among the heavily populated Eastern Seaboard – New York City got a direct hit, and Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia were heavily impacted – Highfield said an economic loss of $20 billion just in property dame is possible. Factor in loss of tax revenue from wages, lost work time, and a general loss of commerce, and that figure could rise to $60 billion, he said.

That could make for a short-term economic slide, but it could also present investors with opportunities in the industries that support rebuilding. That was the case along the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina, spurred mainly by Gulf Opportunity Zone Bonds.

Sandy’s death toll as of Tuesday morning had climbed over 30. “In the long run, it may be somewhat of an economic shot, but it will take several, several months. In the meantime, there is a lot of agony and sadness from a human point of view,” Highfield said in a school press release.

If the storm’s track made it potentially more expensive, it could also lead to good news within the oil and gas industry. Gas prices soared in the immediate aftermath of Katrina. That probably won’t be the case with Sandy, said Jon Rezek, associate professor of economics and director of Mississippi State’s international business program. Sandy did nothing to cause supply interruption at any of the Gulf Coast’s 54 refineries. The Northeast is home to only six such facilities.

“For the most part, gasoline will flow from a lot of the refineries down here to the rest of the country, with fairly minimal impact in terms of a price increase,” Rezek said. “In total, these facilities in the Northeast refine only about 6 percent of the country’s crude oil. Given the relative lack of refining capacity in the Northeast, a supply disruption there over the next few days will not likely cause near the disruption that Gulf storms have on national or regional gasoline prices.”

Tuesday, the price for a barrel of benchmark crude oil rose 55 cents to $86.09. The average price for a gallon of gas fell one cent, to $3.53, more than 11 cents cheaper than two weeks ago.

Oktibbeha County Economic Development Authority President Jon Maynard said at a meeting of that organization Monday that two manufacturers with ties to the automotive industry have started kicking the tires on possible sites in the Starkville area.

According to a story on the Starkville Daily News‘ website, Maynard declined to name the companies, citing confidentiality agreements. Starkville is almost exactly halfway between Canton and Blue Springs, and would make a good geographical match for a company that wanted to do business with Nissan and Toyota. Four-lane highways connect the three cities, so this will certainly be something to keep an eye on.

Maynard also updated the progress on a few other projects that have been simmering for a while in Starkville, including the mixed-use CottonMill Marketplace. The SDN has it covered here.

From the third quarter to the fourth quarter of 2011, Mississippians’ consumer confidence jumped 10 percent.

That’s what jumped out of the latest edition of “Economy Watch,” a survey published by Mississippi State’s College of Business. The college conducted, it says, more than 500 phone surveys to arrive at its conclusion.

The findings echo what state economist Dr. Darrin Webb told lawmakers recently: that the state’s economy improved the last quarter of 2011, but the overall pace of recovery would likely slow to a crawl this year. Getting back to pre-recession levels of employment is going to take another few years, Webb said.

The Mississippi Index of Consumer Sentiment, “Economy Watch” tell us, is made up of two factors: how folks feel about current economic conditions and how they think future conditions will go. The reading at the end of 2011, 89.2, is the highest since 2007. The college considers a MICS reading of 90 to be the benchmark of a healthy economy.

To see the entire survey results, click here.