Mississippi Executions: Methods, Appeals, and Current Status

Mississippi executions are carried out at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman by lethal injection, reserved for people convicted of capital murder and only after a mandatory review by the Mississippi Supreme Court and years of further appeals. The state’s most recent execution was that of Charles Ray Crawford on October 15, 2025, and as of early 2026 no further executions are scheduled.¹

What Crimes Can Lead to Execution in Mississippi

Only capital murder can be punished by death in Mississippi. Ordinary murder, however serious, cannot. The capital murder statute lists more than a dozen scenarios that convert a killing into a capital offense, and prosecutors must charge one of them for the death penalty to be on the table.²

The categories most often charged include:

Killing a peace officer or firefighter acting in an official capacity, where the defendant knew the victim’s role. Mississippi reads “peace officer” broadly, covering police, sheriffs, judges, district attorneys, highway patrol, corrections employees, conservation officers, and federal law enforcement.
Killing committed during a robbery, burglary, kidnapping, arson, rape, or sexual battery, even without intent to kill.
Murder for hire, which exposes both the person who pays and the person who carries out the killing.
Killing with a bomb or explosive device.
Murder by someone already serving a life sentence.

Other qualifying scenarios include killing a child through felonious abuse, murder on school property, assassination of a known elected official, killing three or more people in a single criminal episode or more than three within a three-year period, and murdering a witness, informant, or juror to interfere with a criminal case.²

How a Death Sentence Is Decided

A capital murder conviction does not automatically produce a death sentence. Mississippi capital cases are tried in two phases. The first decides guilt. A separate sentencing proceeding then decides punishment, and only there does the jury consider whether the defendant should live or die.

At that second phase, the prosecution must prove statutory aggravating circumstances: facts the legislature has identified as making a murder worse. These include a prior violent felony, killing for money, killing during another dangerous felony, killing to avoid arrest, creating a great risk of death to many people, or committing a crime that was especially heinous or cruel.³

The defense can present almost anything in mitigation. Under U.S. Supreme Court precedent, jurors must be allowed to consider any mitigating evidence a juror finds relevant. Common examples include mental illness, childhood abuse, youth, a minor role in the killing, lack of a criminal history, and intellectual or neurological impairment. Jurors do not simply tally items on each side. They weigh them. A death sentence requires the jury to find that the aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating ones.

How Executions Are Carried Out

Method

Lethal injection is Mississippi’s primary method. The statute authorizes intravenous injection of a lethal quantity of chemical substances and sets three fallback methods, to be used in this order if lethal injection is unavailable: nitrogen hypoxia, electrocution, and firing squad.⁴ In modern practice, every execution has used lethal injection. The alternatives exist as a backstop for situations like the 2015 federal court order that blocked Mississippi from using certain sedatives in its protocol and effectively stopped executions for years.

The Commissioner of Corrections and two deputy commissioners choose among the authorized methods.

Location

Every Mississippi execution takes place at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman in Sunflower County. Death row was previously held in Unit 29, but after renovations that began in 2024, inmates were transferred to Unit 17 in October 2025. Unit 17 now houses both death row and the execution chamber.⁵ Parchman is the only facility in the state equipped to carry out an execution.

Who Is in the Room

State law controls exactly who may attend. The State Executioner is required to be present and has general supervision of the execution. The Commissioner of Corrections must arrange for the sheriff or a deputy from the county of conviction to attend, along with one or two physicians, or the county coroner, to pronounce death.⁶

Up to eight members of the press may attend. The condemned person may request up to two clergy members and designate two personal witnesses. Two members of the victim’s family may attend if they request it. The Governor may designate two additional witnesses, and the Commissioner assigns the needed security staff. No one else is permitted.⁶

Before and After

Once an execution date is set, the Department of Corrections moves the prisoner to a transition cell near the execution chamber for the period commonly called death watch. The individual may request a last meal and may make a final statement. These are administrative practices, not statutory requirements.

The execution continues until the county coroner or a licensed physician pronounces death.⁴ The body is released to the family if arrangements have been made. If no one claims the remains, the state handles disposition.

Who Cannot Be Executed

Three categories of defendants are constitutionally exempt from execution regardless of what Mississippi law allows. These exemptions come from U.S. Supreme Court interpretations of the Eighth Amendment and apply in every state.

Anyone under 18 at the time of the crime. Roper v. Simmons (2005) bars execution for juvenile offenders.
Defendants with intellectual disability. Atkins v. Virginia (2002) categorically bars their execution, and the Supreme Court has required states to use clinical diagnostic standards rather than rigid IQ cutoffs when evaluating these claims.
Inmates who are not mentally competent at the time of execution. Under Ford v. Wainwright (1986), a prisoner who cannot understand the nature of the death penalty or why it was imposed cannot be executed, and the execution must be postponed until competency is restored.

These issues can be raised at trial, on appeal, or through post-conviction proceedings.

Appeals Between Sentence and Execution

Automatic Mississippi Supreme Court Review

Every death sentence in Mississippi triggers a mandatory review by the Mississippi Supreme Court. Within ten days of receiving the trial transcript, the trial court clerk must transmit the entire record. The justices look at ordinary legal errors and also at three questions unique to capital cases: whether the sentence was influenced by passion, prejudice, or any arbitrary factor; whether the evidence actually supports the aggravating circumstances the jury found; and whether the death sentence is excessive or disproportionate compared to similar cases.⁷ If any aggravating circumstance is thrown out, the court decides whether what remains still outweighs the mitigating evidence, or whether the error was harmless. The automatic review is consolidated with any direct appeal the defendant files.

Post-Conviction and Federal Habeas

After the direct appeal, a defendant can seek state post-conviction relief, raising issues like ineffective assistance of counsel or newly discovered evidence that could not have been raised earlier. Once state remedies are exhausted, the defendant can petition a federal court for habeas corpus review. Federal courts may grant relief only if the state court’s decision contradicted clearly established Supreme Court precedent or was based on an unreasonable reading of the facts.⁸

Federal law also restricts successive habeas petitions. Under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, a prisoner who has filed one federal habeas petition generally cannot file another raising claims that could have been brought the first time. This layered system is why years typically pass between sentencing and execution.

Executive Clemency

The Governor of Mississippi has sole authority to grant clemency in capital cases. Under the state constitution, the governor’s power to pardon, commute sentences, or grant reprieves is unrestricted in all criminal cases except treason or impeachment. The governor requests an investigation by the state pardon board before acting, but the board’s role is advisory and the governor is not bound by its recommendation.⁹

A commutation would convert a death sentence to life imprisonment. A reprieve would delay the execution without changing the sentence. The governor can also issue a suspension to halt an execution while the pardon board investigates. For a pregnant inmate under sentence of death, the governor is required by statute to suspend the execution until the pregnancy has ended. Clemency in Mississippi capital cases is exceptionally rare.

Where Things Stand Now

Mississippi’s execution pace has been uneven. The 2015 federal court order blocking certain lethal injection drugs effectively stopped executions until 2021, closing a gap of nearly a decade. Charles Ray Crawford, executed on October 15, 2025, is the most recent person put to death in the state, and no further executions are currently scheduled.¹

Mississippi holds 35 inmates on death row at Parchman, all now housed in the renovated Unit 17.¹⁰ That is a comparatively small death row, reflecting both the state’s population and the general narrowing of capital prosecution across the country over the past two decades.

1
Mississippi Department of Corrections. Scheduled Executions
2
Justia. Mississippi Code 97-3-19 – Homicide; Murder Defined; First-Degree Murder; Second-Degree Murder; Capital Murder; Lesser-Included Offenses
3
Justia. Mississippi Code 99-19-101 – Jury to Determine Punishment in Capital Cases in Separate Sentencing Proceeding
4
Justia. Mississippi Code 99-19-51 – Manner of Execution of Death Sentence
5
Mississippi Department of Corrections. Photo Gallery: Death Row and Execution Chamber
6
Justia. Mississippi Code 99-19-55 – Execution of Death Sentence
7
FindLaw. Mississippi Code 99-19-105 – Automatic Review of Death Sentences
8
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 2254 – State Custody; Remedies in Federal Courts
9
Legal Information Institute. 29 Mississippi Code R 201-4.1 – Executive Clemency
10
Mississippi Department of Corrections. Death Row Inmates