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Thread: James E. Billiot - Mississippi Death Row

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    James E. Billiot - Mississippi Death Row




    Facts of the Crime:

    On January 29, 1982, James E. Billiot was indicted for capital murder by a Hancock County grand jury. The indictment charged that, on November 26, 1981, Thanksgiving Day, Billiot, using an eight-pound sledgehammer, bludgeoned to death his stepfather, mother, and fourteen-year-old stepsister. In addition, the indictment alleged that the murder of Billiot's stepfather, Wallace Croll, Jr., occurred contemporaneously with a robbery upon him.

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    December 8, 2008

    Lawyers: Hospital can treat Billiot

    JACKSON — Mississippi's state mental hospital has treated numerous felons over the years, and there's no reason for state officials to disregard a federal judge's order to send death row inmate James Billot there, his lawyers argue.

    In documents filed in U.S. District Court this past week, Billiot's attorney, John Henegan, said the attorney general's office is wrong to suggest the facility can't handle Billiot.

    U.S. District Judge Tom Lee suspended Billiot's death sentence Nov. 3. He gave Mississippi authorities 60 days to move the 48-year-old inmate to the Mississippi State Hospital at Whitfield, a sprawling campus in Rankin County.

    Otherwise, Lee said he would order Billiot freed.

    Attorney General Jim Hood contends Whitfield cannot treat Billiot indefinitely because of aging facilities and inadequate security.

    Whitfield director James G. Chastain has also said the Mississippi State Hospital "does not have sufficient security capacity to safely confine a death row inmate."

    Henegan said Whitfield has housed and treated mentally disabled felons since the 1950s. He said the facility housed Billiot for a brief time in 1980 after his arrest for capital murder and after a judge ordered a mental competency examination.

    "It is obviously still the regular practice for capital felons who have been incarcerated at Parchman and for pretrial defendants who have been charged with capital murder and other violent crimes to be sent to the Mississippi State Hospital at Whitfield where they are housed for what may be extended periods as part of ongoing competency evaluations and/or mental health treatment," Henegan said in court papers.

    Chastain, the facility's director, told The Associated Press last month that the forensic services division at Whitfield provides pretrial evaluations and treatment for criminal defendants, not long term housing for convict murders.

    "Convicted murderers are sent by the court to the correction system to serve their sentence," he said at the time. "Those defendants acquitted of crimes as not guilty by reason of insanity are committed by the court to MSH to receive treatment for a mental illness."

    Billiot was sentenced to death in 1982 for the Thanksgiving Day 1981 bludgeoning death of his stepfather, 53-year-old Wallace Croll of Hancock County.

    Billiot's mother, 47-year-old Audrey Croll, and stepsister, 14-year-old Cheryl Ann Croll, were also killed with an 8-pound sledgehammer during a robbery at the Crolls' home in the Leetown community.

    http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/a...WS01/912080324

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    December 10, 2009

    Billiot prosecutor says Billiot would be ‘hardship’ for Whitfield

    PICAYUNE — The district attorney who prosecuted the James E. Billiot murder case in 1982, Albert Necaise, who now practices law in Gulfport, said that placing Billiot in the Mississippi State Hospital at Whitfield will “place a hardship on the metal institution required to house him.”

    “I don’t think they have the manpower or the security people there to watch a man who has killed three people with a sledgehammer. The murders were truly horrible, unbelievably brutal.”

    As it now stands, it appears that under a federal judge’s order, the convicted murderer will have to be either transferred to the hospital or freed on Jan. 3, 2010.

    Necaise served 18 years in the district attorney’s office, 12 as district attorney. He was the DA when the Billiot murder case was tried in Gulfport and he prosecuted the case.

    The murder happened in the northwest corner of Hancock County, one of three counties his district covered. The other two were Stone and Harrison.

    The case was tried in Gulfport after a judge granted a change of venue from Bay St. Louis to Gulfport because of pretrial publicity.

    “When we prosecuted him I thought he was sane. Of course, the courts then held that he was sane,” said Necaise. “He had to be declared mentally competent to stand trial.”

    Necaise served as DA from 1972 to 1984. The Billiot trial took place in December 1982. It lasted almost five days.

    Billiot, now 48, was accused of murdering his stepfather, Wallace Croll, 53, his mother Audrey Croll, 47, and his half-sister Cheryl Ann Croll, 14, on Thanksgiving Day of 1981 in the Leetown Community about six miles east of Picayune just across the Pearl River-Hancock County line.

    Authorities said Billiot bludgeoned the three family members to death. He was charged with all three murders but was tried for the murder of Wallace Croll, whom he also robbed, making it a capital offense and allowing for the application of the death penalty.

    After the 1982 trial, at which a bevy of psychiatrists testified that he knew what he was doing when he murdered his family, Billiot was sentenced to death. However, ever since then he has sat on death row at Parchman, lapsing in and out of delusions and awaiting appeals by attorneys who have been fighting his case for 27 years.

    In the latest twist, U.S. District Judge Tom Lee on Nov. 3 told state authorities to transfer Billiot to the Mississippi State Hospital at Whitfield for treatment or release him. Lee suspended Billiot’s death sentence and gave state officials 60 days to transfer him or release him.

    However, State Attorney General Jim Hood said Whitfield does not have the facilities or security to house a death row inmate indefinitely and asked that Lee amend his order to release Billiot.

    In addition, MSH director James G. Chastain told The Associated Press that the facility does not have “sufficient security capacity to safely confine a death row inmate.”

    One of Billiot’s attorneys, John Henegan, said that the attorney general’s assessment is wrong and there is no reason why MSH could not handle Billiot and treat him. That 60-day period appears to end on Jan. 3, 2010.

    http://www.picayuneitem.com/local/lo...344083507.html

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    Confusion surrounds coast death penalty case

    JACKSON, MS (AP) - The attorney general's office has withdrawn its suggestion to a federal judge that death row inmate James Billiot be transferred to a state prison in east Mississippi. The proposal was suggested to U.S. District Judge Tom S. Lee in January. In court documents dated Feb. 5, Attorney General Jim Hood says the proposal was the result of a miscommunication with the Department of Corrections.

    The state had argued Billiot could remain incarcerated and get treatment for mental disability. Now, the state has again asked Lee to rescind his Nov. 3 order in which the judge found Billiot mentally disabled, suspended his death sentence and ordered him moved within 60 days to the Mississippi State Hospital at Whitfield.

    http://www.wlox.com/Global/story.asp?S=11957518

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    April 15, 2010

    Judge Says He'll Issue Stay Of Execution For Miss. Inmate

    JACKSON, Miss. -- A federal judge said he will issue an indefinite stay of execution for Mississippi death row inmate James Billiot.

    U.S. District Judge Tom S. Lee, in an order filed Tuesday, agreed to change a decision he issued in November in which Lee said he would free Billiot if the state didn't transfer the inmate to the state mental hospital in Whitfield for treatment.

    The state had argued Billiot could remain incarcerated at the Parchman prison and get treatment for mental disability.

    Lee said he still considers Billiot mentally disabled. However, Lee said he would trust state officials who contend Whitfield is not equipped to take Billiot.

    Lee said the stay of execution would only be lifted if the state can prove Billiot competent.

    http://www.wapt.com/news/23147322/detail.html

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