Meet the Exonerated: Mississippi's Death Row, Part Three

Larry Fisher was charged with the rape and murder of an 18-year-old high school student in Meridian Mississippi in 1983.

On February 11, 1983, Patsy Jo Rivers was raped in Lauderdale County, Mississippi. Meridian Police set up a decoy operation in which they caught and arrested Fisher. The next day, Ms. Rivers identified Fisher in a line-up. Fisher was formally indicted for the rape, in addition to two separate capital murder charges for the deaths of Melinda Gail Weathers and Carol Formby.

A series of similar crimes had occurred in the same area and the pre-trial media coverage of the case was extensive. Fisher asked for a change of venue but was denied and in April, 1984, Fisher was tried, convicted, and sentenced to die for the capital murder of Ms. Weathers.

Fisher appealed and on October 16, 1985, the Mississippi Supreme Court reversed his conviction and and remanded the case for a new trial with directions for a change of venue because of the saturation media coverage. In December, 1985, Fisher's trial began and on December 13, 1985, the jury acquitted Fisher of the charge of murder.

On January 30, 1986, the Rivers rape trial commenced. Fisher, as an indigent, was represented by appointed counsel, just as he had been on each of the two earlier occasions. The state used three witnesses that had testified in both previous murder trials. The testimony of these witnesses in the prior murder trials was minimal and limited to Fisher's modus operandi in such murder. Though Rivers was one of these three common witnesses, her testimony in the two earlier trials never mentioned the rape. However, as the rape victim, Rivers was the state's main witness in the present case.

Fisher requested a full free transcript of the second trial, which the State refused. He had been given a transcript of the first capital murder trial; and the State also gave him all discovery materials within its possession, including written statements by all of the state's witnesses. Moreover, his counsel obtained a full transcript of the rape trial's preliminary hearing in which Rivers had testified. The state judge permitted him to use this transcript during the rape trial for impeachment purposes. At the close of the trial, the jury convicted Fisher of rape and sentenced him to life imprisonment. Fisher appealed and the Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed his conviction on September 14, 1988.

Fisher remains incarcerated because of rape conviction.