JACKSON — A study group will gather facts about lotteries in other states but won’t make a recommendation either for or against creating a game of chance in Mississippi, its leader says.
“We are not looking for any particular outcome,” Republican state Rep. Richard Bennett of Long Beach said as the group met briefly Thursday at the Capitol. “We want to be as objective, independent, as possible.”
Mississippi is one of six states without a lottery. Efforts to create one have fizzled in the past two decades, usually with little debate in the Mississippi Legislature.
The issue gained fresh attention early this year when Republican Gov. Phil Bryant said legislators should consider starting a lottery to generate new revenue. State tax collections have fallen short of expectations most months for the past year and a half, leading to multiple rounds of budget cuts.
Republican House Speaker Philip Gunn is a leader at a Baptist church in Clinton and opposes a lottery. But, he created the study group to examine how the games work in other states.
Mississippi’s Joint Legislative Committee on Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review did research showing how much money neighboring states collected after prizes and expenses during the 2016 budget year, which ended June 30. Tennessee collected $394 million, Louisiana collected $177.9 million and Arkansas collected $85.2 million.
Alabama, which also shares a border with Mississippi, does not have a lottery.
Members of the study group will travel sometime to Louisiana and Arkansas to look at lottery operations there, said Bennett, who is chairman of the House Gaming Committee.
Wicker’s two sons witnessed the execution but did not make a statement to the media.
Arthur’s lawyers filed a flurry of last-minute appeals in a bid to halt the execution, but the U.S. Supreme Court opened the way for the execution to proceed shortly before 11 p.m. Thursday. The state prison system began administering the lethal injection drugs around 11:50 p.m. before the death warrant expired at midnight. He was not pronounced dead until after midnight.
Wicker’s wife, Judy, initially told police she came home and was raped by a black man who shot and killed her husband. After her conviction, she changed her story and testified she had discussed killing her husband with Arthur, who came to the house in makeup and an Afro-style wig and shot her husband. She said she paid him $10,000. Arthur was in a prison work-release program at the time for the 1977 slaying of his sister-in-law, a crime he admits to committing.
His first two convictions in the Wicker case were overturned, but the third one was not. Arthur asked jurors to give him the death penalty. The decision was strategic, he said, to open up more avenues of appeal.
The state set seven execution dates for Arthur between 2001 and 2016. All were delayed as a pro bono legal team fought his sentence. In 2016, Arthur came especially close to the death chamber.
In a telephone interview Monday, Arthur maintained his innocence but acknowledged that his chance of another stay was diminishing.
“I’m terrified, but there’s nothing I can do,” Arthur told The Associated Press.
Janette Grantham, director of the Victims of Crime and Leniency, called the years of execution delays exceedingly painful for the family of Troy Wicker to bear.
Earlier, Arthur’s attorneys had asked the U.S. Supreme Court to halt the execution. The lawyers have argued that the opening sedative in Alabama’s execution protocol — midazolam — wouldn’t properly anesthetize him before he’s injected with other drugs to stop his heart and lungs. In December, inmate Ronald Bert Smith coughed for the first 13 minutes of his execution and moved slightly after two consciousness tests. Arthur’s lawyers argued that Smith was awake during his execution. The state responded that there was no evidence Smith experienced pain.
Both the state of Alabama and Arthur’s lawyers have pointed to his case as an example of what they see wrong in death penalty cases.
Arthur’s lawyer said the state had sought DNA testing on hairs collected at the crime scene.
The state attorney general said Arthur used perpetual litigation to avoid the death sentence for years.
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