The 1979 conviction of a Vicksburg man who pleaded guilty to murder was reversed Thursday by the Mississippi Supreme Court and sent back to Warren County for a decision on whether to retry the 31-year-old case.

Justices unanimously agreed that wording in the indictment of Robert H. Jackson, now 56, who has been in prison since June 12, 1979, was improper and therefore his guilty plea was invalid.

Click here to read the Supreme Court’s opinion

Jackson was accused in the death of Josephine Thames Todd, who was 79 when she died in a botched burglary Jackson said he committed in the early morning hours of May 1.

The Supreme Court said the wording actually failed to charge Jackson with a crime.

“(W)e necessarily concluded that Jackson’s indictment was fatally insufficient to charge him with capital murder or burglary … because it failed to assert the underlying offense that comprised the burglary,” the court wrote. “(W)e unavoidably concluded that the indictment also failed to charge him with simple murder or manslaughter, because it omitted the phrase ‘without the authority of law’ or ‘unlawfully.’”

To be complete, a burglary indictment must identify the crime intended by a defendant once an illegal breaking and entering is accomplished, the court ruled.

Warren County officials can start over and seek a “properly drawn indictment” against Jackson. He is being held at the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility in Pearl pending a decision by the state to ask the Supreme Court to reconsider and by District Attorney Ricky Smith whether to reopen the case and present the evidence to a grand jury.

With just four weeks until the next grand jury term begins May 3, Smith said it’s possible but not certain a case could be prepared by then.

“It’s premature at this point to make a decision,” Smith said today. “We’ll try to find family members and speak with them, and also get in touch with law enforcement to see if we can gather back together all the people involved in the original charge.”

Smith said the ruling “after this amount of time” came as a shock.

Jackson pleaded guilty as a habitual offender and while incarcerated has filed numerous appeals on his own. In winning the reversal, he was represented by attorney Will Bardwell.

Todd’s nephew, Jackson attorney Lee Thames Sr. said today he hopes the DA will “take action to see that justice is done — justice for Mr. Jackson as well as for the state.”

Thames stopped short of offering his opinion of what “justice” for Jackson would entail, calling it a “difficult decision” that he would not attempt to second-guess.

“He’s been in prison for 30-something years,” Thames said. “It’s up to the state to decide if that’s enough.”

Todd’s great-nephew is Lee Davis Thames Jr., city attorney for Vicksburg.

According to accounts in the Vicksburg Evening Post, Jackson, then 25, confessed to breaking into Todd’s apartment to rob her. When he discovered she was in the home, he tied her up with a belt from a dress and also gagged her.

Todd’s death was ruled by then-coroner L.W. Callaway to have been caused by “hypoxia due to asphyxiation” — smothering. There were no major signs of a struggle, but Todd had scratches and cuts on her face, he said.

Then police Chief A.J. Holliday said when investigators found her body, the gag had been pulled down and the belt was cut loose, but not in time to save her life. In his statement, Jackson said he had restrained and tied Todd, but freed her before fleeing.

Mrs. Todd’s body was discovered after some of her personal papers were found outside the apartment building at 1111 Crawford St. An undisclosed amount of cash was taken.

Court records showed that Jackson, who had been jailed five times previously after indictments and guilty pleas to burglary charges, had been released from prison about a week before Todd died. A widow, she had moved to the apartments on a dead-end block from her large home on Fort Hill Drive.

Jackson was indicted June 4 by the grand jury, and pleaded guilty before Circuit Judge John Ellis a week later. His guilty plea forestalled a possible death penalty, a sentence her nephew said his family opposed.

“Killing Jackson wasn’t going to bring Aunt Jo back,” Thames said, adding, “she was a delightful woman,” well-educated, who in addition to many accomplishments had lived in China for a time between the two world wars with her husband, U.S. Navy Admiral Carlton Todd.

The Todds had two sons who are both deceased, Thames said, and five surviving grandchildren who live in Maryland, Ohio, Colorado, Texas and Louisiana.

Jackson’s first appeals were in 1986 and most recently in 2007. In its ruling, the Supreme Court acknowledged, “This case has a lengthy and confusing procedural history,” due to the number of appeals. The written opinion included discussion of legal procedures as well as jurisdiction and specifics of Mississippi law, amended over the years, with regard to murder charges.

“It’s carefully drafted, from a legal standpoint,” said Thames. “I’ve practiced law for 50 years and many members of our family have been devoted to the law and its application. I certainly don’t criticize the court for its carefully crafted opinion.”

He said it clearly shows that due process violations are treated very seriously by the court.

Jackson is the second convicted 1970s-era murder defendant from Warren County to be facing release in recent weeks. Arthur Lee Stevenson, who stabbed to death Warren County jailer A.J. “Holly” Koerper in 1974, was granted parole in February by the Mississippi Department of Corrections.

Jackson was an inmate in the county jail at the time of Koerper’s death and was a witness for the state in Stevenson’s trial.

Stevenson will be released after a training period to a relative in Florida.

Contact Pamela Hitchins at phitchins@vicksburgpost.com