{"data":{"id":"us-ms/miss.-code-ann.-97-3-21","jurisdiction":"us-ms","citation":"Miss. Code Ann. § 97-3-21","heading":"Homicide; penalty for first- or second-degree murder or capital murder.","body":"(1) Every person who shall be convicted of first-degree murder shall be sentenced by the court to imprisonment for life in the custody of the Department of Corrections.\n(2) Every person who shall be convicted of second-degree murder shall be imprisoned for life in the custody of the Department of Corrections if the punishment is so fixed by the jury in its verdict after a separate sentencing proceeding. If the jury fails to agree on fixing the penalty at imprisonment for life, the court shall fix the penalty at not less than twenty (20) nor more than forty (40) years in the custody of the Department of Corrections.\n(3) Every person who shall be convicted of capital murder shall be sentenced (a) to death; (b) to imprisonment for life in the State Penitentiary without parole; or (c) to imprisonment for life in the State Penitentiary with eligibility for parole as provided in Section 47-7-3(1) (f).","path":["Title 97. Crimes","Chapter 3. Crimes Against the Person"],"source_url":"https://archive.org/download/gov.ms.code.ann.2018/release78.2020.07.08/gov.ms.code.title.97.odt","current_through":"2020-07-08","vintage":"Mississippi Code Release 78 (2020-07), retrieved 2026-09-17","retrieved_at":"2026-10-27T05:55:07Z","sha256":"fe8938f7354f8f7400075944dd75f22008f6eb27c557f5355beecaa0c3bd162e","source_id":"us-ms","stale":false,"prev":"us-ms/miss.-code-ann.-97-3-19","next":"us-ms/miss.-code-ann.-97-3-23","notices":[{"id":"open-us-law","title":"Open US Law compilation","text":"Compilation CC BY 4.0, Open US Law (Vaquill AI). GroundRules uses only the releases published under CC BY 4.0: from v2026.09 the compilation is licensed CC BY-NC 4.0, and GroundRules does not use those releases. Each affected row names its release in its vintage label. GroundRules parsed and filtered the compilation to retain enacted text.","url":"https://huggingface.co/datasets/vaquill/open-us-law","license_url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},{"id":"pro-ms","title":"Mississippi Release 78 supplement","text":"Mississippi electronic product files were republished by Public.Resource.Org under a public-domain dedication. GroundRules uses enacted text from Release 78 only as a labeled supplement to the newer Open US Law rows.","url":"https://archive.org/details/gov.ms.code.ann.2018"}]},"notice":"GroundRules: Original legal text. Not legal advice."}