Already sentenced to federal prison, six former Mississippi law enforcement officers who pleaded guilty to a long list of state and federal charges for torturing two black men were sentenced Wednesday in state court.
The six white former Mississippi law enforcement officers who attacked Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker in January 2023 had already been sentenced to federal prison terms ranging from about 10 to 40 years. In March, U.S. District Judge Tom Lee called their actions “egregious and despicable” as he gave sentences near the top of the federal guidelines to five of the six men.
Rankin County Circuit Judge Steve Ratcliff on Wednesday gave the men yearslong state sentences that were shorter than the amount of time in federal prison that they had already received. Time served for the state convictions will run concurrently, or at the same time, as the federal sentences, and the men will serve their time in federal penitentiaries.
The case drew outrage from top law enforcement officials in the country, including Attorney General Merrick Garland, who said the officers committed a “heinous attack on citizens they had sworn an oath to protect.” In the episode’s grisly details, local residents saw echoes of Mississippi’s history of racist atrocities by people in authority.
The first defendant to be sentenced Wednesday was Brett McAlpin, the fourth-highest-ranking officer in the Rankin County Sheriff’s Office. McAlpin had previously been sentenced by a federal judge to about 27 years of federal imprisonment. He was sentenced in state court Wednesday to 15 years on one charge and five years on another.
Prior to the sentencing hearing, Malik Shabazz, an attorney representing Jenkins and Parker, said the state sentencing hearing would be a “test” for Ratliff and state prosecutors.
