Former Jackson Police Officer Anthony Fox will walk free after the Mississippi Court of Appeals overturned his culpable negligence manslaughter conviction for the 2019 death of Jackson resident George Robinson.
After a jury convicted him in August 2022, Fox was set to spend five years in state prison. Robinson died two days after an encounter with Jackson police officers who were sweeping the Washington Addition in January 2019, looking for a suspect in a crime he had no relation to. Witnesses said they saw officers pull Robinson from his car and beat him.
Mississippi Court of Appeals Chief Judge Donna Barnes wrote the majority opinion in Tuesday’s 5-4 decision overturning Fox’s conviction. “Based on the credible evidence presented at trial, no evidence establishes that Fox acted in a grossly negligent manner or that the victim’s death from minor abrasions was reasonably foreseeable under the circumstances,” she wrote.
Judges Virginia Carlton, Anthony Lawrence III and Jim Greenlee concurred with Barnes. Judge Jack Wilson concurred in part and result without issuing a separate opinion. Judge John Emfinger wrote the dissenting opinion, joined by Judges Latrice Westbrook, Deborah McDonald and Neil McCarty.
Read the Mississippi Court of Appeals ruling reversing Anthony Fox’s manslaughter conviction.
The majority opinion held that the testimony of three medical professionals consulted during the trial was sufficient to render eyewitness testimony that Fox had “body-slammed” Robinson “completely impossible based on the medical evidence.”
“Medical testimony showed that Robinson suffered no injuries consistent with being thrown, slammed, or kicked,” Barnes wrote. “Even Dr. LeVaughn, the prosecution’s own expert, testified that he could not find evidence of any type of violent impact and that there was no evidence that Robinson was beaten, kicked, or body slammed. Rather, he found that Robinson suffered some sort of ‘impact’ that caused ‘abrasions’ but that it was a ‘minor type of injury.’”
Eye Witnesses Described Violent Attack
Drs. Timothy Usee and Jonathan Arden testified for the defense at Anthony Fox’s trial, arguing that the scope of George Robinson’s injuries were inconsistent with being slammed headfirst into the pavement.
“Frankly, a man of his size, I
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