A Warren County man who pleaded guilty a year ago to stabbing a waitress on the crowded floor of a Vicksburg casino will stand trial in September, yet who will represent him isn’t solidified yet.

Clarence Jones, 25, appeared in court Tuesday before Circuit Judge M. James Chaney with his court-appointed attorney Penny Lawson after she asked to be removed from the case.

“We’ve just come to an impasse,” Lawson said. “We don’t see eye-to-eye on the case.”

Lawson would not elaborate on the disagreement, citing attorney-client confidentiality.

Chaney denied Lawson’s request, unless Jones, who will stand trial Sept. 8 for burglary and aggravated domestic violence, hires his own attorney.

“I don’t have the funding at this time to get a paid attorney,” Jones said.

Jones pleaded guilty to aggravated domestic violence last August and was sentenced to 16 years in prison for stabbing his ex-girlfriend, Jessica Melton, multiple times with a pocketknife during her work shift as a waitress at Ameristar Casino. He was represented by Al Rhodes in that case.

During the hearing Tuesday, Jones said Lawson advised him to plead guilty in the aggravated domestic assault and burglary case set for September.

“I believe she’s supposed to defend me at all costs,” Jones said.

In that case, Jones is accused of breaking into the Melton’s home and choking her unconscious.

His parents, Jessie and Debra Jones, have previously said Jones entered the home and found Melton unconscious. Both parents appeared in court Tuesday in support of their son but left after his hearing, which was at the top of a lengthy docket.

Attempts to reach the Jones family Wednesday were unsuccessful.

After his arrest in the stabbing at Ameristar, Jones’ competency was called into question, but last June, an examination at the Mississippi State Hospital at Whitfield found Jones competent.

Jessie Jones has said his son started acting unstable in 2011 after a Cadillac he was working on fell on top of him, trapping him. Whether Clarence Jones’ injuries had any effect on his mental state has not been substantiated by the psychologists who examined him, and the onset of mental illness often occurs in a person’s early 20s.

Melton and Clarence Jones first met around Christmas 2011 at Vicksburg Mall where Melton worked with Jones’ mother. They dated off an on until April 2012, when Jones is accused of breaking into Melton’s home in the 400 block of Culkin Road and assaulting her.

Clarence Jones was in the Warren County Jail this morning awaiting transfer back to a Mississippi Department of Corrections facility. He is tentatively scheduled for release in September 2028.