AG Fitch seeks another death row execution date

Attorney General Lynn Fitch is asking the Supreme Court to set an execution date for Charles Ray Crawford, who has been on death row for over 30 years. 

“Crawford’s death sentence is final and he has exhausted all state and federal remedies,” the attorney general’s office wrote in its Nov. 22 filing.  

Fitch’s office requests the execution date to be set within the next 30 days, which could fall sometime around Christmas. But that 30 days can be extended if other court motions are filed or if other action is taken. 

Since last year, Fitch’s office has also asked for execution dates to be set for three other death row inmates: Willie Jerome Manning, Robert Simon Jr. and Richard Jordan.  

Crawford’s attorneys are asking for the court to hold off because he has not yet exhausted his remedies in federal court. They cited a divided decision that the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued last week denying him habeas relief challenging a previous rape conviction that is not tied to his death sentence. 

The appeal court’s decision came the same day the attorney general’s office asked for an execution to be set. 

For his death sentence, Craword, now 58, was convicted of the rape and murder of North Mississippi Community College student Kristy Ray in 1993. 

Four days before a separate trial on aggravated assault and rape charges, Crawford kidnapped 20-year-old Ray from her parents’ home in Tippah County. He left ransom notes for her family and took her to an abandoned barn and stabbed her. Crawford’s DNA was also found on Ray, indicating he sexually assaulted her, according to court records. 

Crawford, also a student at North Mississippi Community College, told investigators he was going hunting and had a knife and firearm. He said he was worried about “an upcoming event” and had been stockpiling food in the barn where he killed Ray, according to court records.

Crawford said he had blackouts, remembering only being inside the Ray home, hearing someone crying, finding Ray handcuffed and then putting her in a car and driving away. After another blackout, Crawford woke up in the woods with Ray dead and her hands handcuffed behind her back.

He admitted “he must have killed her, but did not remember doing so,” according to court records. Crawford also led police to Ray’s body in the woods. 

At his 1994 trial, Crawford presented an insanity defense, with a prison psychiatrist who treated him testifying that he suffered from depression and periods of time lapse without memory. The psychiatrist also testified about Crawford’s past medication treatment, previous psychiatric hospitalization and bipolar disorder diagnosis in 1989. 

A clinical psychologist who provided rebuttal testimony didn’t see evidence of Crawford suffering from bipolar illness, and said he showed premeditation and was able to distinguish right from wrong. Another rebuttal witness, a forensic psychiatrist, said Crawford was improperly diagnosed with having psychogenic amnesia. 

Crawford was convicted in Lafayette County as a habitual offender for burglary, rape, sexual battery and capital murder. 

The Mississippi Supreme Court denied his appeal, and several times the U.S. Supreme Court denied him a petition for writ of certiorari. 

Crawford has also pursued post-conviction relief. In 2017, the court denied a motion for an execution to be set because he was still challenging his rape and aggravated assault conviction and sentence. 

In those cases, he was convicted for raping a 17-year-old and hitting her friend over the head with a hammer, according to court records. Similarly, he claimed insanity and said he didn’t remember because of blackouts. 

The Nov. 22 5th Circuit Court dissent said the trial court repeatedly declined to provide Crawford with a psychiatrist or mental health professional, other than a state expert, to evaluate him and help with his defense, a violation of his rights. The justices also said his appellate counsel was ineffective. 

The dissent mentions how Crawford was eventually evaluated by qualified mental experts and diagnosed with severe brain injury and partial epilepsy, which explains his spells and periods of blackouts, and how on the day of the 17-year-old’s rape he was in a state of repetitive seizures. 

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