The Mississippi attorney general is asking a state appeals court to overturn the conviction of a former police officer in the 2019 beating death of a man who was pulled from a vehicle and subdued by three officers.
Last August, a Hinds County jury convicted former Jackson detective Anthony Fox of culpable negligence manslaughter in the death of 62-year-old George Robinson. Circuit Judge Adrienne Wooten sentenced Fox to five years in prison — a 20-year sentence with 15 years suspended.
Fox, 38, is in the Madison County Jail, according to Mississippi Department of Corrections records.
In papers filed Monday with the appeals court, Attorney General Lynn Fitch argued that prosecutors failed to prove the core element of culpable negligence manslaughter, which is "wanton disregard of, or utter indifference to, the safety of human life."
The Republican attorney general wrote that Fox ordered Robinson out of a car after seeing Robinson make an apparent drug deal from inside the vehicle, and Robinson struggled against Fox and two other police officers after the officers removed him from the car.
LAWSUIT FILED AGAINST MISSISSIPPI CITIES BY FAMILY OF MAN FATALLY STRUCK DURING POLICE PURSUIT
"The officers maneuvered him to the ground and continued trying to pull his hands apart," Fitch wrote. "Robinson dragged his hands to his mouth, where he ate what he was trying to hide. He then stopped struggling."
News outlets reported Fox was accused of pulling Robinson from a car and striking him in the head and chest as police were searching for a murder suspect.
Robinson received "a small, superficial abrasion on his forehead" but had no other visible injuries from the struggle, Fitch wrote. Robinson, who had health problems and was on medication, had a seizure hours later and died two days after that from bleeding on his brain.
Hinds County Coroner Sharon Grisham-Stewart ruled the death a homicide by blunt-force trauma.
Two other Jackson police officers, Lincoln Lampley and Desmond Barney, were cleared of second-degree murder charges in Robinson’s death.
The Jackson Police Department named Fox its officer of the year in 2014. In 2015, he and another Jackson officer rescued a police dog from a burning vehicle. After leaving the Jackson department, he worked as a police officer in the suburb of Clinton.
During the sentencing hearing, Clinton Police Chief Ford Hammond testified Fox was "a perfect police officer" and that his city was "better and safer because of Anthony Fox."
