Attorney Jill Collen Jefferson, president of JULIAN, a civil rights and international human rights law firm, speaks in Lexington, Miss. during a civil rights tour on June 1, 2023. Jefferson was arrested Saturday, June 10, while filming a traffic stop conducted by officers from a police department she is suing in federal court. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, file)
A prominent Mississippi civil rights lawyer who predicted she would be the victim of retaliation for suing cops over civil rights violations was arrested and jailed for filming a traffic stop conducted by the same police department she is suing.
Jill Collen Jefferson is the president of JULIAN, a civil rights organization that sued the Lexington Police Department in 2022 on behalf of a group of local residents. The lawsuit alleged that Black residents of the county are regularly subjected to “targeting and merciless brutality” as well as “harassment, coercion, threatening conduct, and often brutal mistreatment” by the department.
Jefferson is also a trial advocacy instructor at Harvard Law School, a former speechwriter for Barack Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign, and a civil rights policy staffer for the late Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.). She was arrested Saturday, charged with multiple crimes, and held in a local jail until Monday afternoon.
Law&Crime spoke with Jefferson’s criminal defense attorney, Michael Carr, on Monday. Carr said that two weeks ago, Jefferson said she believed there was a strong chance she would be arrested the next time she entered Lexington. Indeed, at 10 p.m. on Saturday, Jefferson called him and said she was in the process of being arrested.
Carr said that during the call, he heard an officer bang on the door of his client’s car. The call was abruptly ended when an officer grabbed Jefferson’s phone and terminated the connection.
According to Carr, Jefferson was filming a traffic stop from her car on a public street. Carr said Lexington Police Officer Scott Walter demanded Jefferson’s ID. Carr said that his client produced identification, but refused to exit her car after Walker ordered her to do so. Walker then reportedly pulled Jefferson out of her vehicle and thoroughly searched her car and trunk as well as her purse and personal belongings.
During the search, Carr said, the officer located Jefferson’s firearm which was under the driver’s seat.
“I hope it comes back as stolen,” the officer stated, according to Carr, who also said the firearm was his client’s legal property. Following the extensive search, Jefferson was arrested and transported to Holmes-Humphreys County Regional Correctional Facility, where she was charged with failure to comply, disorderly conduct, and resisting arrest.
Carr confirmed that Jefferson was held in jail until Monday afternoon on a $1,248.50 bond and a separate $35 booking fee — both of which were ultimately dropped by the current police chief Charles Henderson. Jefferson, who stayed in jail for over two days before her release, refused to pay either the bond or the booking fee on the grounds that her underlying arrest had been unlawful and because other individuals in the city of Lexington cannot afford a similar fee.
Carr expressed a belief that Jefferson’s arrest may have been directly related to the ongoing federal lawsuit filed by JULIAN against Lexington law enforcement.
“We’re concerned that this arrest was made in retaliation for the federal civil rights suit that Attorney Jefferson and her organization have filed on behalf of certain citizens of Lexington,” Carr told Law&Crime. “We are also concerned that the practices involved in this arrest are commonplace and that this time, the Lexington Police Department arrested someone with a voice.”
When asked about Jefferson’s decision to remain in jail rather than pay the required bond or booking fee, Carr said that “individuals in the city of Lexington should not be made to pay any fees or bond amount in an unlawful arrest.”
Lexington’s former police chief, Sam Dobbins, who is white, was fired in July 2022 after audio tape was discovered on which he was said to use racist and homophobic slurs and said that he had killed 13 people in the line of duty. Although an officer says he recorded a 17-minute clip in which Dobbins said, “I don’t give a f— if you have to kill a motherf—– in cold blood,” Dobbs denied that he made the comments.
Jefferson’s next court appearance has been set for July 13.
Law&Crime reached out to the Lexington Police Department and Sheriff March’s office, but did not receive a response.
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