People who watched the trial and followed the details remember Hattiesburg Attorney and Public Defender Alethea Shaw as the as the person who was presiding over the inmates while they were voting by absentee. Witness testimony put Shaw with the inmates as they voted, while Notary Claudia Hibbler went room to room notarizing ballots after they had been signed. A notary is supposed to witness the signatures; however as absentee ballots were inspected, it was discovered that Hibbler notarized a ballot without a signature. Which begs the question, did she witness any of the signatures?
According to court testimony, Hibbler left the jail with the ballots and delivered them to City Hall. That isn’t legal procedure. Statute requires the voter to mail the ballot back when it was mailed to them. In the post election trial it was uncovered that the jailbird ballots had been opened and tampered with after they left the jail in the possession of Claudia Hibbler. In addition to that, there are numerous legal issues with the jailhouse absentee votes. One person who voted was a minor at seventeen years of age, and several more were disenfranchised felons. Lastly, state law does not even permit inmates to vote absentee.
Johniece Durpee prepared the typed requests for the jailbird ballots, notarized the requests, and delivered them to city hall personally. This begs the same question as Hibbler. Did Johniece witness the signatures? At trial, a rather comical display occurred when Dupree attorney Precious Martin stated that Mrs. Dupree could not find her notary book as a result of the tornado which hit in February, months before the election.Regardless, delivering the absentee ballot requests for the jailbirds did not meet the statutory requirement; nor did her personally prepared absentee ballot requests.
In a not so surprising turn of events, it has been discovered that Public Defender Alethea Shaw, who is a resident in Lamar County (outside the city), cast a ballot using the address of her parents at 814 Martin Luther King Avenue on June 4th. Shaw resides and is homestead at 408 Green Hills Drive in Lamar county. What’s even more intriguing is that Shaw voted June 4th, but she didn’t cast a ballot on September 24th. Shaw is appointed by the mayor and approved by council. It is anticipated that her career as a public defender is over, and she will certainty face a bar complaint filed with the Mississippi Bar Association.
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Is there a defined process, method, procedure or whatever used to inform citizens of the individuals being recommended to the Council by the Mayor? The only way I know of or have seen is through random articles in the HAmerican. We citizens need to have the information made available to us in the form or a complete list (at least) if we are to respond to the Council. Article in today’s paper mentioned some names and suggested some of the names to be forwarded to Council, but not all names or positions. The names mentioned here (Aletha Shaw and Carol Jones Russell have not been mentioned in the HA.
Of course she has no business being a public defender seems like defending her behaviors are job enough
So we get the same Mayor that won’t truly do anything to change the status of Hattiesburg. Now he is allowed to bring back the same people that have done nothing over the years as well. So this is the type of government we want to represent our city. And I do live in the city. Just in case the “haters” want to talk smack
If I lived in hattiesburg I would not only call they would get tired of seeing me , because this is a joke, app. A crook to anything just leaves the door open for more crooks , hattiesburg needs to clean house, get rid of all of them and start over with people that has morals
Is all Johnny Dupree going to nominate is more crooks. Or will he put some body in with no baggage. Seems like all he wants to try to get in is somebody with questions hung on them. Still corruption going on
Hattiesburg Patriot are they voted on by council members? How does the process work?
I don’t live in Hattiesburg but I am outraged that this keeps going on
did it
Elections have consequences.
Seriously?!?!?! These people have no shame.