Biography
Henry Shields was one of three Black Mississippi sharecroppers tortured into confessing to the murder of Raymond Stewart. Arrested on April 1, 1934, he was sentenced to death after a two-day trial. The U.S. Supreme Court reversed the convictions in Brown v. Mississippi on February 17, 1936. Shields remained jailed while awaiting retrial. The defendants subsequently pleaded no contest to manslaughter; Shields received a five-year sentence with credit for time already served. He was discharged in February 1939.
Brust places this defendant in Meridian jail after arrest, within the Brown v. Mississippi prosecution.