The State Tried to Drop It. A Judge Said No.

By Latisha Sky | Prodigal Breaking News | prodigalbreakingnews.com

What happened

In 2022, a record year for shootings by Mississippi Capitol Police, officers stopped 25-year-old Jaylen Lewis in Jackson. Officer Michael Lamar Rhinewalt, who is white, fired the shot that killed him. Rhinewalt and a second officer, Steven Frederick Jr., were indicted for manslaughter in 2025.

At trial in September, Frederick was acquitted. The majority-Black jury deadlocked on Rhinewalt. Attorney General Lynn Fitch's office then said it would not retry him, saying in a September 28 press release that in a tie, the "benefit of the doubt" goes to law enforcement. Her office asked the court to end the case permanently.

What the judge did

Hinds County Circuit Judge Faye Peterson said no. She ruled that the attorney general's office showed bias in favor of law enforcement and gave no real basis, such as conflicting evidence, for abandoning the case. She said she would have considered a temporary dismissal that lets a future prosecutor pick it back up. The AG's office has since asked for exactly that, and Peterson hasn't ruled on it yet. She said a new trial could happen as early as February. Rhinewalt faces up to 20 years if convicted.

Lewis's mother, Arkela Lewis, said the ruling gave her "a little bit more faith." His father, William Drake, called the attorney general's decision "political." A friend of Rhinewalt's, defense attorney Shaun Yurtkuran, said the officer is in "legal purgatory." The AG's office did not respond to requests for comment.

Rhinewalt also faces a separate aggravated assault case for shooting Sherita Harris a month before Lewis was killed. That trial is set for next month.

The pattern

Indictments of police officers for shootings are rare in Mississippi. When one finally reached a jury, the state's top prosecutor tried to close the door forever on the strength of a tie. A judge decided a deadlock is not an acquittal, and that "benefit of the doubt" isn't supposed to belong to one side before the evidence is weighed.

Notice the pattern. Interrupt it.

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Sources: Mississippi Today; AP (via Just Security); WLBT; WLOX.