莫莉·明塔 / 《密西西比今日报》 亨兹县法院法官约翰尼·麦克丹尼尔斯的签名，就是地方检察官和公设辩护人所需要的一切。
MOLLY MINTA/Mississippi Today Hinds County Court Judge Johnnie McDaniels’ signature was all the district attorney and public defender needed.
那是八月的一个周五下午，两办的律师向法官提出了一个不同寻常的建议：从拥挤的亨兹县拘留中心释放三十几名被羁押者。
It was a Friday afternoon in August when attorneys from the offices pitched the judge an unusual proposal: Release some three dozen people from the crowded Hinds County Detention Center.
每名被羁押者面临的均为非暴力指控，未被起诉，且已在狱中度过至少100天。但麦克丹尼尔斯不同意——至少不是立即同意。
Each of the detainees faced nonviolent charges, had not been indicted and had spent at least 100 days in jail. But McDaniels wouldn’t agree – at least not immediately.
相反，这位法官数日后发布了一项命令，宣称拥挤本身并不能成为释放被告的正当理由。他指示律师逐案提交申请。
Instead, the judge would issue an order days later, declaring that crowding alone did not justify a defendant’s release. He directed the attorneys to submit requests case by case.
律师们在接下来几周照做了，最终为19名被告申请释放。根据他的案件登记册，麦克丹尼尔斯批准了其中13人的释放。
The attorneys would comply over the next few weeks, ultimately seeking release of 19 defendants. McDaniels would grant release to 13, according to his docket.
但九月的听证会几乎没有减少当时约200名未被起诉的在押人员。相反，这些听证会暴露了亨兹县刑事司法系统更深层的失职：尽管获准释放，被告仍继续被关押；检察官难以解释为何案件会拖延数月，有时甚至数年。
But hearings in September did little to cut into what was then roughly 200 people jailed without indictment. Instead, they exposed deeper failures in Hinds County’s criminal justice system: defendants remaining behind bars despite being granted release and prosecutors struggling to account for cases that had languished for months, sometimes years.
虽然被告享有无罪推定和快速审判权，但检察官和辩护律师在听证会上极少援引宪法保护。这是因为这项权利在密西西比州实际上已被放弃，该州是少数几个在逮捕后没有取得起诉书固定期限规定的州之一。
While defendants are presumed innocent and have rights to a speedy trial, prosecutors and defense attorneys rarely invoke constitutional protections during the hearings. This is because the right has effectively been abandoned in Mississippi, one of a handful of states without a fixed deadline for obtaining an indictment after an arrest.
检察官与公设辩护人的这次合作，在亨兹县只是昙花一现，因为对社区安全的担忧掩盖了雷蒙德那个致命拘留中心中被告的困境。
The collaboration between prosecutors and public defenders represented a blip in Hinds County, where concerns about community safety have overshadowed the plight of defendants in the deadly detention center in Raymond.
“如今，我听说过这种事发生在地球上，但没听说过发生在欣兹县，”密西西比基督教大学法学院教授马特·斯蒂菲说，他曾协助起草该州刑事诉讼规则。“事实上，我职业生涯的大部分时间里，听到的情况恰恰相反：难以让地方检察官同意，也难以让法官设定合理的保释金。”州公设辩护人安德烈·德·格鲁伊质疑这项努力为何必要。
“Now, I’ve heard of this happening on the planet earth, but not in Hinds County,” said Matt Steffey, a Mississippi Christian University School of Law professor who helped write the state rules of criminal procedure. “In fact, most of my career, what I’ve heard is the opposite: the difficulty of getting the DA to agree and the judge to set reasonable bonds.”State Public Defender Andre de Gruy questioned why the effort was necessary.
他注意到监狱关押人数去年夏天激增，但不知缘由：是被捕人数增多，还是检方未能推进案件？“为何非暴力犯罪嫌疑人要在监狱里关押数月？”他问道。麦克丹尼尔斯拒绝接受本文采访，他也有类似疑问。
He noticed the jail population jumped last summer but did not know why: Were more people being arrested, or were prosecutors failing to move cases through the system? “Why are nonviolent offenders sitting in jail for months?” he asked. McDaniels, who declined to be interviewed for this article, had similar questions.
“所谓的‘房间里的大象’，就在于这些事项，”他在一次听证会上说。
“That’s the giant elephant in the room, so to speak, as it relates to these matters,” he said during one of the hearings.
另一个问题是：根据《密西西比今日报》对记录的审查，欣兹县临时地方检察官布拉德·麦卡洛克夸大了其办公室释放工作的成果。
Another issue: Interim Hinds County District Attorney Brad McCullouch overstated the results of his office’s release efforts, according to a Mississippi Today review of records.
在最近的一次采访中，麦卡洛克称其办公室已促成74名因非暴力指控被关押且未经大陪审团起诉的人获释——远多于其办公室与公设辩护人合作争取释放的19名被告。
In a recent interview, McCullouch said his office had secured the release of 74 people jailed without indictment on nonviolent charges – far more than the 19 defendants whose release the office sought in collaboration with the public defender.
麦卡洛克列出的这74人名单，反映的是7月1日至9月28日期间所有因重罪指控获释的被告，其中包括15名面临暴力指控的人，以及获释与检方努力无关的被告。
McCullouch’s list of 74 reflects all defendants with felony charges released from jail from July 1 to Sept. 28, including 15 people facing violent charges and defendants whose release were unrelated to the DA’s efforts.
检察官承认，他不知道去年同期获释的人数。尽管如此，他仍认为其办公室的努力正在见效。“有人进来，却没人出去，”他说。丹尼尔·雷·博伊德·科洛姆自称就是那些“没人”之一。
The DA acknowledged he did not know the number of people released during the same time last year. Still, he believes his office’s efforts are paying off. “People have been coming in, but nobody has been getting out,” he said. Daniel Ray Boyd Collom calls himself one of those nobodies.
36岁的科洛姆于2025年10月进入雷蒙德拘留中心，面临入室盗窃和未按时出庭指控。
Collom, 36, entered the Raymond Detention Center in October 2025 and faced charges of burglary and failure to appear.
他睡在地板上。他说其他被拘留者携带刀具并纵火，导致牢房楼被烟灰覆盖。数月过去了。他失去了获释的希望。
He slept on the floor. He said other detainees carried knives and set fires that left cell blocks covered in soot. Months went by. He lost hope of ever getting out.
然后在周五，8月28日——被关押近一年后——警官把科洛姆装进一辆面包车，把他放在杰克逊市中心的人行道上。他说没人告诉他为什么获释。“我不知道，毫无头绪，连一丝线索都没有，”他说。对科洛姆来说，自由似乎和监禁一样令人困惑。
Then on Friday, Aug. 28 – nearly a year after he was locked up – officers loaded Collom into a van and dropped him off on a sidewalk in downtown Jackson. He said no one told him why he got out. “I have no idea, no clue, not even the slightest inkling,” he said. To Collom, his freedom seemed as bewildering as his confinement.
一个多月前，麦卡洛克站在杰克逊市中心的联邦法院大楼里。就在那一天，州长任命他为地区检察官，此前前欣兹县地区检察官乔迪·欧文斯承认联邦腐败指控并辞职。
A little over a month earlier, McCullouch stood in the federal courthouse in downtown Jackson. It was the very day the governor would appoint him district attorney after former Hinds DA Jody Owens pleaded guilty to a federal corruption charge and resigned.
麦卡洛克向美国联邦地区法院法官卡尔顿·里夫斯承诺：他将释放因非暴力指控被关押在监狱的人。
McCullouch made a promise to U.S. District Court Judge Carlton Reeves: He would release people facing nonviolent charges from the jail.
雷蒙德拘留中心的状况依然恶劣，该法官通过一项长期生效的同意令对其进行监管。几天前，一名18岁青年被踩踏致死，其生命最后时刻的视频在网上疯传。
Conditions at the Raymond Detention Center, which the judge oversees through a long-running consent decree, were as bad as ever. Days earlier, an 18-year-old had been stomped to death , a video of his final moments going viral.
监狱也人满为患。未被起诉的被拘留者人数与2025年10月相比几乎没有变化，当时联邦指定的监狱接管人温德尔·弗朗斯曾要求欧文斯“迅速解决”待决案件。
The jail was also crowded. The number of unindicted detainees had barely budged from October 2025, when the federally appointed jail receiver, Wendell France, had asked Owens to “expeditiously resolve” pending cases.
在里夫斯法官面前出庭约一个月后，麦卡洛克试图兑现承诺。他的办公室要求公设辩护人提供面临非暴力指控的被告名单。这产生了60个名字，检方从中挑选了32名候选人予以释放。
About a month after appearing before Reeves, McCullouch attempted to make good on the promise. His office asked the public defender for a list of defendants facing nonviolent charges. This yielded 60 names, from which prosecutors selected 32 candidates for release.
当检方向麦克丹尼尔斯法官提交案件时，大多数被告已被关押至少150天。
By the time prosecutors presented the cases to McDaniels, most of the defendants had been in jail for at least 150 days.
负责推动释放工作的新任检察官查理·金告诉法官，部分被告尚未被起诉，是因为检察官办公室在拿到完整的调查卷宗前无法推进案件，尽管检察官有时会在没有卷宗的情况下将案件提交大陪审团。
Charlie King, a new prosecutor leading the release effort, told the judge some of the defendants had yet to be indicted because the DA’s office couldn’t proceed until it obtained the complete investigative file, even though prosecutors have sometimes taken cases to the grand jury without one.
麦克丹尼尔斯指出：“过去，检察官办公室只是坐等执法部门把卷宗送过来。”金表示，他无法对欧文斯的决定发表评论。
“In the past,” McDaniels noted, the DA “would just kind of sit around and wait until law enforcement sent the file over.”King said he could not speak to Owens’ decisions.
金说：“缺少卷宗是不可接受的。”在密西西比州，一旦一个人被捕，司法系统给予其重获自由的机会寥寥无几。
“The lack of file,” King said, “is unacceptable.”Once a person is arrested in Mississippi, the justice system offers few chances at freedom.
第一次机会通常出现在最初的法庭提审时，由法官决定是否给予被告保释以及设定保释金数额。如果被告负担不起该金额，可以在合理根据听证会后申请降低保释金。
The first opportunity typically comes during an initial court appearance, when a judge decides whether to give a defendant a bond and sets an amount. If they cannot afford the amount, a defendant can ask for a lower bond after a probable cause hearing.
如果这些努力失败，被告可能会陷入一种无人管辖的境地，等待大陪审团审查其指控。出路通常掌握在一位法官手中：约翰尼·麦克丹尼尔斯。
If those efforts fail, defendants can find themselves in a no man’s land while waiting for a grand jury to review their charges. The path out usually runs through one judge: Johnnie McDaniels.
他主宰所有未起诉的刑事案件。他的权力源于2023年欣兹县巡回法院资深法官温斯顿·基德发布的一项常设令。
He presides over all unindicted criminal cases. His power comes from a 2023 standing order, issued by Hinds County Circuit Court Senior Judge Winston Kidd.
在评估释放请求时，密西西比州的法官有自由裁量权，以决定被告是否对社区构成危险，以及他们出庭受审的可能性有多大。
In evaluating requests for release, judges in Mississippi have discretion to determine if a defendant poses a danger to the community and how likely they would be to return to court.
在检察官办公室根据公设辩护人名单提交的第一个案件中，麦克丹尼尔斯质疑检方为何想要释放一名因身为前科犯持有枪支而被指控的男子。金援引了恶劣的监狱条件。
In the first case the district attorney’s office presented from the public defenders’ list, McDaniels questioned why prosecutors wanted to release a man charged with possessing a firearm as a convicted felon. King cited poor jail conditions.
“你当时在我的办公室里，”麦克丹尼尔斯坐在有机玻璃屏障后面对金说，“我想我已经说得很清楚了，监狱拥挤可能发生的情况不会迫使本法院做出决定。”法官问道，如果不存在监狱拥挤问题，检察官办公室还会寻求释放该男子吗？
“You were in my chambers,” McDaniels, sitting behind a plexiglass barrier, told King. “I think I was pretty clear the idea of what may be happening with jail overcrowding is not going to compel this court.”The judge asked if the DA’s office would still seek the man’s release if there weren’t an issue with jail crowding.
“我必须听到有说服力的论据，而不是政治论据，”麦克丹尼尔斯补充道，随后批准了该请求。
“I have to hear persuasive arguments, not political arguments,” McDaniels added before granting the request.
在作出裁决时，麦克丹尼尔斯不仅考虑犯罪细节，还考虑被告与社区的联系及其品行。
To reach his decisions, McDaniels considers not only the details of an offense but also a defendants’ ties to the community and their character.
“我不确定此事的事实情况，”公设辩护人金妮·克雷默请求释放一名27岁、有两个孩子的父亲、且已在一家展厅找好洗车工作后，法官对她说。被捕前，他在一所社区大学努力争取获得普通教育发展文凭（GED）。麦克丹尼尔斯想知道该男子涉嫌偷窃了什么财物。
“I’m not sure the facts of this matter,” the judge told the public defender, Ginny Kramer, after she asked him to release a 27-year-old father of two who had a job lined up cleaning cars at a showroom. Before his arrest, he had been working to earn a GED at a community college. McDaniels wanted to know what property the man was alleged to have stolen.
在另一案件中，麦克丹尼尔斯得知，一名被告因酒驾和毒品指控被关押近两年却未被起诉，如今因在押期间腿部骨折而坐上了轮椅。“他入狱以来经历了很多，”克雷默告诉法官。
In another case, McDaniels learned that a defendant who had been unindicted and in jail for nearly two years on DUI and drug charges was now in a wheelchair because he had broken his leg while incarcerated. “He’s been through a lot while in jail,” Kramer told the judge.
麦克丹尼尔斯无动于衷，断言统计数据显示，因酒驾被捕者在落网前很可能已酒后驾驶至少40次。
McDaniels was unmoved, asserting that statistics showed people arrested for DUI had likely driven under the influence at least 40 times before being caught.
“这种病痛，”麦克丹尼尔斯问道，“如何能阻止他在酒精影响下四处驾驶？” 在整个听证过程中，法官反复追问为何检察官办公室迟迟未对如今请求释放的被告提起公诉。
“How does the ailment,” McDaniels asked, “prevent him from driving around under the influence of alcohol?”Throughout the hearings, the judge returned to the question of why the DA’s office had yet to indict defendants they now wanted released.
“看来所有其他当事方……都履行了职责，”麦克丹尼尔斯在听取一名被控一级纵火罪女子的案件后说道。“而到了那个节点，就再没有任何进展。” 麦卡洛克在采访中承认，其办公室需要更快地起诉案件。
“It appears all the other parties … did their job,” McDaniels said after hearing the case of a woman charged with first-degree arson. “And at that point, nothing else happened.”McCullouch acknowledged in an interview that his office needed to indict cases more quickly.
他希望周二地区检察官特别选举的获胜者能延续他对大陪审团小组所做的改革，包括聘请一名专门负责清理未起诉案件的检察官。
He hopes whoever wins Tuesday’s special election for district attorney will continue changes he made to the grand jury unit, including hiring a prosecutor focused on clearing unindicted cases.
该员工格蕾塔·肯普·马丁每天翻阅监狱日志，寻找需要起诉的案件。
That employee, Greta Kemp Martin, combs through jail logs every day to find cases that need to be indicted.
欣兹县地区检察官的五位候选人一致认为，未起诉案件的积压问题亟待解决，尽管他们在最佳解决途径上存在分歧。但总有人被漏掉。丹尼斯·格林就是其中之一。
The five candidates for Hinds DA agree the backlog of unindicted cases needs to be addressed , though they differ on how best to do so. But people keep slipping through the cracks. Dennis Green is among them.
他自2024年12月起一直被关押在监狱，被控入室盗窃、恶意毁坏财物和违反假释规定。麦克丹尼尔斯曾下令于2026年6月释放他，随后在地方检察官办公室重新提出他的案件后，又于9月再次下令释放。
He has been in jail since December 2024 , accused of burglary, malicious mischief and violating parole. McDaniels had ordered him released in June 2026 and then again in September, after the DA’s office brought his case back up.
最近获释的被告、59岁的杰里·杰夫科特自2026年4月起一直被关押，罪名是作为性犯罪者未履行登记义务。但地方检察官办公室表示，找不到提出指控的警察，导致检方无法将案件提交大陪审团。
A recently released defendant, 59-year-old Jerry Jefcoat, had been in jail since April 2026 on charges of failure to as a sex offender. But the DA’s office said it couldn’t find the police officer who filed charges, preventing prosecutors from presenting the case to the grand jury.
“我们仍然无法确定被列为调查员的那个‘威廉姆斯’究竟是谁，”马丁说。
“We are still unable to ascertain who the ‘Williams’ is that is listed as the investigator,” Martin said.
欣兹县治安官泰里·琼斯拒绝接受采访。在联邦政府剥夺其控制权之前，他的部门一直负责监管该监狱。
Hinds County Sheriff Tyree Jones, whose department had oversight of the jail until the federal government stripped it of control, declined to be interviewed.
地方检察官办公室告诉《密西西比今日报》，法官没有驳回其任何释放请求。但查阅法庭记录显示情况并非如此。
The DA’s office told Mississippi Today that the judge had not denied any of its requests for release. But a review of court records showed otherwise.
麦克丹尼尔斯驳回了四项动议。在其中三项中，法官写道，被告已被起诉。
McDaniels denied four motions. In three, the judge wrote the defendants had already been indicted.
然而，法庭记录显示，没有任何迹象表明这三名被告中的任何一人已收到起诉书，尽管他们仍被关押在县监狱中。
Yet, court records show no indication any of the three defendants had been served with their indictments, despite remaining in county custody.
州公设辩护人德格鲁伊表示，这一失误体现了系统中更多的失灵之处。
De Gruy, the state public defender, said the failure was emblematic of more breakdowns in the system.
“按理说，检察官手上有起诉书副本，”他说，“他们可以把它交给法警，法警就可以向当事人送达。这完全可以在法庭上进行。我就是无法理解，人怎么会被起诉、被关在监狱里，而起诉书却没有送达。”德格鲁伊仍持怀疑态度，他说他最近注意到监狱每日在押人数有所下降，这表明地方检察官办公室的新做法可能正在产生效果。“但你们还会再犯吗？”他问道。
“Presumably, the prosecutor has a copy of the indictment,” he said. “They could hand it to the bailiff, and the bailiff could serve the person. It could happen in the courtroom. I just cannot understand how people can be indicted, in jail and the indictment not served.”De Gruy, who remains skeptical, said he had recently noticed the jail’s daily population counts declined, suggesting the DA’s office’s new approach might be producing results. “But are you going to do it again?” he asked.