USA - Mississippi. The Mississippi Supreme Court has ordered to resentence Lawrence Branch to life without parole

The Mississippi Supreme Court has ordered the Carroll County Circuit Court to resentence Lawrence Branch, 32, black, to life without parole. The justices acted after a federal judge threw out Branch's death sentence on December 3 (see). U.S. District Judge Michael Mills found Branch had met each test of the clinical criteria for a diagnosis of mental retardation. Branch was sentenced to death in 2002 in the beating and robbery of Dorothy Broome Jorden on Jan. 21, 2001. The Supreme Court ordered Branch to be resentenced within 30 days.