The Rankin County District Attorney’s Office has retained counsel in relation to a public records lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi and the Center for Constitutional Rights, according to court documents.
Karen Howell and William Trey Jones, III of Brunini, Grantham, Grower & Hewes, PLLC in Jackson have been hired to represent the office.
The ACLU of MS and CCR filed a lawsuit last month in the Rankin County Chancery Court seeking access to public records related to the state’s ‘Goon Squad’ scandal.
They accuse RCDAO of failing to disclose documents relevant to residents of Rankin County, including those convicted of crimes that relied on testimony from law enforcement officers who participated in the ‘Goon Squad’ scandal of civil rights abuses.
The 'Goon Squad’ became nationally known in 2023 after two Black men, Eddie Parker and Michael Corey Jenkins, were viciously physically and sexually abused in a home by six former Rankin County law enforcement officers. One of the officers shot Jenkins in the mouth and both Parker and Jenkins were then framed for crimes neither committed.
Public reporting on the case, as well as public commentary obtained by the U.S. Department of Justice, revealed patterns of misconduct that included torture, violence and coerced confessions from members of the public.
“We submitted a Public Records Act request in the summer of 2025 to the Rankin County District Attorney's Office seeking information primarily about the review of records and cases affected by Rankin County Sheriff's Department misconduct, the quote-unquote ‘goon squad,’” Korbin Felder, an attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights, told MPB News in January.
However, ACLU attorneys and Felder received just one response from the DA’s office: an email sent to a journalist that did not contain information that should have been accessible under Mississippi’s Public Records Act.
The ACLU of MS and CCR have also recently filed a motion to compel the RCDAO to provide non-exempt records for in camera review and swear by affidavit that other records do not exist.
The RCDAO declined an MPB request for comment.