Sheriff contests lawsuit seeking White woman’s arrest in Emmett Till case

Sheriff contests lawsuit to arrest Carolyn Donham in Emmett Till case - The Washington Post

A Mississippi sheriff has pushed back against calls from relatives of Emmett Till to arrest a White woman who claimed Till had whistled at her inappropriately, an accusation that led to his lynching, arguing a decades-old arrest warrant for the woman is moot after a grand jury declined to indict her.

The death of Till — a 14-year-old Black boy who was abducted, tortured and lynched in Mississippi in 1955 — stunned Americans and displayed the brutal extent of racism in the country. The Leflore County sheriff arrested two White men for the killing but an all-White jury acquitted them, starting a decades-long push by Till’s family and supporters to re-examine the case.

A cousin of Till argued in a February lawsuit that the current Leflore County Sheriff’s Office must correct a decades-old mistake: not arresting Carolyn Bryant Donham, the wife of one of the men who killed Till. The lawsuit seeks an order for the sheriff’s office to serve a warrant against Donham, identified as “Mrs. Roy Bryant,” that was only recently rediscovered.

On Thursday, lawyers representing Ricky Banks, the current Leflore County sheriff, pushed back. They argued that Sterling’s allegations concerned the previous Leflore County sheriff, not Banks, and that the warrant for Bryant’s arrest had been rendered moot.

Attorneys representing Banks and Priscilla Sterling, Till’s cousin, declined to comment.

In 1955, Donham, then 21, accused Till of making improper advances toward her, saying the teenager whistled at her in a Mississippi grocery store. Four days later, her husband, Roy Bryant, and his half brother J.W. Milam kidnapped and tortured Till, lynched him and dumped his body in a river. Images of Till’s mangled body, which his mother insisted be shown to the public, shook the country.

Bryant and Milam were acquitted of murder charges by an all-White jury in September 1955, though they later admitted to killing Till. Anger over the jury’s decision has simmered since.

Multiple investigations scrutinized Donham’s role in Till’s death, first in 2007 and later in 2018, but she has never been charged.

Then, in June, researchers discovered a decades-old warrant for Donham’s arrest that, alongside Bryant and Milam, charged her with kidnapping Till. Bryant and Milam’s names were checked off on the warrant. Donham’s wasn’t.

Calls for Donham’s arrest immediately followed. In February, Sterling filed a federal lawsuit against Banks to compel the Leflore County Sheriff’s Office to serve the warrant.

Sterling’s lawsuit argued that Donham deserved blame for falsely claiming that Till had assaulted her, which prompted Bryant and Milam to kidnap and kill Till. It also alleged that the Leflore County sheriff’s decision not to arrest Donham in 1955 was driven by racial discrimination and raised questions about the failure to arrest her. An officer wrote that Donham’s warrant was not executed because she was not found in the county, according to Sterling’s complaint and records filed in court. But Donham was present at Bryant and Milam’s trial in the county soon after, according to the complaint.

In court filings Thursday, attorneys for Banks motioned to dismiss the lawsuit.

They cited the August decision

“The Arrest Warrant is moot and Banks cannot legally serve it on Donham,” Banks’s court filing states.

The motion also argued that Sterling did not allege any misconduct by Banks, only his predecessor as sheriff, and that she lacked standing to bring the lawsuit because she herself had not suffered injury.

After the August decision, advocates for Till pledged to continue campaigning for Donham’s arrest.

“Carolyn Bryant Donham’s actions, and the unserved warrant proves her culpability,” the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation said on Facebook.