The attorney general’s temporary dismissal request remains pending before the judge
A Hinds County circuit judge in Mississippi has blocked an effort by Republican Attorney General Lynn Fitch’s office to permanently dismiss the manslaughter case against former Capitol Police officer Michael Lamar Rhinewalt. Rhinewalt admitted firing the shot that killed 25-year-old Jackson man Jaylen Lewis, a Black man, during a traffic stop. A majority-Black jury deadlocked in September on whether to convict Rhinewalt. Judge Faye Peterson’s ruling leaves open the possibility of a second trial and up to 20 years in prison under a future attorney general after Fitch’s term ends in 2028, although the attorney general’s request to dismiss the case temporarily remains undecided.
Peterson ruled that Fitch’s office had shown a “bias” in favor of law enforcement despite its legal responsibility to prosecute Rhinewalt, a white former officer. In her Wednesday ruling, she said the office had failed to give a substantive basis to “abandon” its oath and duty to keep prosecuting the case, such as “conflicting evidence.” She wrote that the court did not operate in a vacuum and was aware that, when the case was announced as a mistrial, the office had chosen to abandon prosecution because of a preference for law enforcement rather than its duty to prosecute without bias, sympathy or prejudice.
September’s manslaughter trial against Rhinewalt and Steven Frederick Jr., who admitted shooting at Lewis in self-defense, marked the first criminal trial arising from Capitol Police’s record year of shootings in 2022. The jury acquitted Frederick and deadlocked in Rhinewalt’s case. Peterson said at the time that another trial could be held as soon as February.
Hours after the trial ended, Fitch’s office announced in a press release that it would not put Rhinewalt on trial again. The office wrote, “in the case of a tie, the benefit of the doubt goes to our law enforcement officers.” The attorney general’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Special Assistant Attorney General Luke Williamson, who handled the prosecution, defended the office’s position. “The prosecution is bound to administer justice and protect the public by faithfully, fairly and impartially prosecuting crimes without regard to bias, sympathy, prejudice, preference or favoritism,” Williamson wrote. “The prosecution believes we have exercised appropriate and reasonable measures in the prosecution of this case.” Williamson justified the permanent-dismissal request with Frederick’s acquittal and the “age” of the case, even though the attorney general’s office had waited three years to indict the former officers.
After Peterson rejected the permanent dismissal, Fitch’s office filed an official request Friday to temporarily drop the case. Peterson said she would have considered such a request while allowing another prosecutor to take it up in the future, but court records showed that she had not yet ruled on the new request. The office’s initial request had aimed to shield Rhinewalt from prosecution in the manslaughter case forever.
Arkela Lewis, whose son Rhinewalt killed, initially thought the case was over. After learning from Mississippi Today that Rhinewalt could face another trial, she said Peterson’s ruling gave her “a little bit more faith.”
“It doesn’t give me peace, but I can breathe a little bit knowing that she’s speaking out for my family, for my son,” she said.
Matthew Steffey, a Mississippi Christian University law professor, called the initial permanent-dismissal request an “unnecessary reach.” “What that does is it instructs the next attorney general — whoever that is, and no matter what future evidence comes forward — ‘You may not prosecute this officer,’” Steffey said. “It would be a shame to have to tell a victim, ‘We can’t pursue justice because the previous holder of this office made sure to tie our hands.’”
Rhinewalt’s friend Shaun Yurtkuran, a Jackson-based criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor for Fitch’s office, called the handling a “mess.” Since Fitch’s office secured a grand jury indictment in the case last year, Yurtkuran said he had wanted nothing more than for Rhinewalt to finally be free of the case that had “financially ruined” his friend. He nevertheless said the attorney general had failed to give the judge any valid legal reason for why the case should end forever.
“I don’t fault Judge Peterson because I fault the AG,” Yurtkuran said. “I think they screwed up in the beginning, like indicting him, and even to the end, they couldn’t even do that right.”
In Mississippi, the attorney general has sole power under state law to prosecute officers who shoot civilians. Law experts expect Rhinewalt to remain clear of prosecution in the manslaughter case as long as Fitch is attorney general, though Yurtkuran said Peterson’s ruling still leaves the former officer in “legal purgatory.” Steffey said that once Fitch’s term is up at the beginning of 2028, a new attorney general would review the case and decide whether to put Rhinewalt on trial again. If Rhinewalt is retried after that point, he could face up to 20 years in prison.
As of the source report, the only name in the attorney general’s race was Republican Sean Tindell, the former public safety commissioner whose department oversees the bureau that investigated Lewis’ killing. Tindell did not immediately respond to a request for comment. During his tenure leading the Department of Public Safety, he oversaw reforms that gave its law enforcement standards board more power to investigate officer misconduct.
The case history included another conflict involving Rhinewalt, a Capitol Police officer with the force’s crime suppression Flex Unit. Prosecutors accused him of shooting Sherita Harris, a Black woman, during an attempted traffic stop a month before he killed Lewis. The attorney general’s office was prosecuting the aggravated-assault case against Rhinewalt while it was also defending him against a $3 million federal lawsuit Harris filed that accused him of shooting her in the head and leaving her with “permanent neurological and facial injuries.”
The attorney general’s office argued that separate divisions handling the cases meant there was no evidence of “improper influence” on the grand jury that indicted Rhinewalt in Harris’ shooting. Hinds County Circuit Judge Adrienne Wooten ruled the discrepancy was an unprecedented “conflict of interest which gravely undermines the integrity and fairness of the proceedings.” The attorney general appointed the office of Lin Carter, the district attorney of Forrest and Perry counties, to take over the prosecution of Harris’ shooting. After a year and a half of delays, Rhinewalt is scheduled to face trial in that case next month.
Lewis’ father, William Drake, said the attorney general’s decision not to retry Rhinewalt was a “political” move as Republican Fitch runs for governor in next year’s elections. He said Fitch’s office has so rarely taken officers to court for shooting civilians that its decision to indict Rhinewalt and Frederick for his son’s death already “spoke volumes” to him. According to Fitch’s office, Lewis’ killing was one of only four times during her tenure when officers shot at civilians that the office did not find to be “justified.”
“For her to go against the grain, it was some light for me in some very dark times,” Drake said. “For her to even indict her own.”
Peterson’s ruling rejected only the permanent dismissal. The temporary-dismissal request remains undecided, and no retrial was ordered. Legal experts expect Rhinewalt to remain clear of prosecution while Fitch remains attorney general; after Fitch’s term ends at the beginning of 2028, a future attorney general could decide whether to put him on trial again.