Biography
A 14-year-old Black youth sentenced to 48 years (four consecutive 12-year terms) at Parchman Prison in Mississippi after he and three friends were, per The Black Panther Vol. 19 no.2 (1979), forced to plead guilty to armed robbery, with no parole eligibility under state law.
A contemporaneous Associated Press report published in the February 4, 1979 Big Spring Herald said May entered Parchman the preceding Monday, January 29, and was isolated in its prison hospital. This dates his Parchman admission rather than any earlier county-jail detention. The Mississippi Supreme Court confirmed his actual release on bond on February 23 after withdrawal of the guilty plea. A later jury trial resulted in a twelve-year sentence; in 1981 the court affirmed the conviction but remanded sentencing. That later proceeding is separate from the first Parchman stay.
Big Spring Herald, February 4, 1979, PDF page 3; May v. State (Mississippi Supreme Court, 1981).
