Clay County resident Tyler Edmonds on Tuesday will appear before the Mississippi Supreme Court at 1 p.m. to argue for compensation related to a four year prison incarceration after being wrongly convicted of murder.
In a press release from Edmonds' attorney, Jim Waide of Tupelo, the firm said Tyler's appeal asserts that he was pressured into providing a false confession. Waide then maintains that Tyler, 27, should not be barred from recovering the $50,000 per year which Mississippi state law allows for those wrongfully convicted.
Oktibbeha County Circuit Judge Lee Coleman previously ruled that Edmonds is not entitled to the compensation, ruling the law does not allow the pay out when the accused has brought about his own conviction by fabricating evidence.
Edmonds was a seventh grader attending West Point Junior High School when his half-sister's husband Joey Fulgham was murdered. Tyler would later confess to the murder, but the supreme court threw out the conviction in 2007, ruling that Tyler did not get a fair trial.
Edmonds was later found not guilty of the charges when a new trial was conducted. He then filed suit in federal court alleging that his constitutional rights were violated concerning the false confession.
Waide and the Mississippi Attorney General's office could not be reached for comment.