Marshall Project investigation reveals Hinds County jail holding dozens without grand jury indictment

On July 21, 2026, The Marshall Project published a follow-up investigation documenting that dozens of people — perhaps many more — remained held in Hinds County's Raymond Detention Center in Mississippi for months without receiving a grand jury indictment from the district attorney, leaving them in legal limbo with no pathway to trial, no access to evidence, and no means to negotiate a plea.

The practice has been documented since at least December 2025, when The Marshall Project found at least 60 people jailed for more than three months without indictment, including at least five held for over a year. One man was held for 18 months on drug charges without an attorney or indictment. Mississippi is one of the few states that permit indefinite pretrial detention without a formal charge: without an indictment, a detainee cannot access evidence against them, cannot be offered a plea deal, and cannot go to trial. The Marshall Project identified one detainee, LaDarius Moore, held six months on a $7.5 million bond — one of the highest in county history — with no court date set and no response from the judge to whom he wrote by hand asking for his day in court.

The failure has multiple institutional causes. Federal receiver Wendell France, who took over operation of the Raymond Detention Center in October 2025 under a court order stemming from a Justice Department enforcement action, wrote to District Attorney Jody Owens warning that extended pretrial stays were "unsustainable and legally problematic" and were impeding his ability to reform the facility. Owens responded that he had not received case files from law enforcement on more than 100 of approximately 240 unindicted detainees, and cited an overwhelmed state crime lab, mental health evaluation delays, and "the sheer volume of crime." Sheriff Tyree Jones, who ran the jail until the federal receiver took over, said he was unaware of any delays in forwarding cases to prosecutors. The county's public defender office also reported five recent attorney departures, leaving more than 100 detainees per departing attorney without representation.

The Raymond Detention Center has operated under federal judicial oversight since 2022, after the county repeatedly failed a Justice Department consent agreement covering rampant violence, understaffing, drug access, and record-keeping failures that kept detainees past their court-ordered release dates. The grand jury indictment backlog directly compounds that crisis: overcrowding driven by unresolved pretrial caseloads strains staffing, safety, and the receiver's reform capacity at an already constitutionally troubled facility.