The Mississippi Supreme Court has found that the judge presiding over a 2021 Tallahatchie County Circuit Court capital murder trial erred when he sentenced Antonio Puncharell “Isha” McDowell to life imprisonment without parole.
In so doing, the state’s high court on May 9 overturned not only the Nov. 18, 2021, ruling of Circuit Judge James (Jimmy) McClure III, but also the March 7, 2023, decision by the Mississippi Court of Appeals that upheld the sentence handed down by McClure in Charleston.
The state Supreme Court last month ordered that the case be remanded to Tallahatchie County Circuit Court “for proceedings consistent with this opinion.”
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District Attorney Jay Hale said that means McDowell will be summoned back to Tallahatchie County for resentencing.
“He will be brought back to Tallahatchie Circuit Court and go before Judge McClure, who will sentence him to life with the possibility of parole and then send him back [to prison],” the DA explained.
Hale said no resentencing date has been scheduled.
During an initial three-day October 2000 trial in Charleston, a jury found McDowell, of Cascilla, guilty of capital murder and conspiracy to commit robbery in the Nov. 3, 1999, shooting death of Cascilla store owner Bobby Julian Whitten, 60.
Circuit Judge Andrew Baker sentenced McDowell to life without eligibility for parole on the murder charge and five years for conspiracy.
Then, a 2012 U.S. Supreme Court decision found mandatory life-without-parole sentences for juveniles — offenders under the age of 18 — to be unconstitutional and made the ban retroactive. Although McDowell was 18 at the time of initial sentencing, he was 17 when the crime was committed.
In 2016, McDowell filed a motion seeking resentencing, renewing it in January 2019.
At the close of a circuit court hearing in Charleston on Sept. 30 and Oct. 1, 2019, the jury declared it was hopelessly deadlocked on the question of whether the life without parole sentence should remain. On Oct. 4, Circuit Judge Jimmy McClure declared a mistrial.
On Nov. 18, 2021, McClure resentenced McDowell to life without parole.
McDowell’s attorneys appealed to the Court of Appeals, which last year upheld McClure’s ruling.
In November, the state Supreme Court agreed to accept the case for review.
McDowell, now 42, entered the state's prison system on Oct. 11, 2000, and has served 23 years and eight months.
He presently is being held at the East Mississippi Correctional Facility in Meridian.
