Michael Ducksworth v. State of Mississippi

FAIR, J.,

for the Court:

¶ 1. In 1989, Michael Ducksworth and Ozia Booth pled guilty to two counts of murder and one count of burglary. Twenty years later, Booth was paroled, but Ducksworth was not. This prompted Ducksworth to file a “Petition for Order to Show Cause or In the Alternative, Petition *324for Writ of Habeas Corpus” in the Forrest County Circuit Court, contending that the Parole Board acted arbitrarily and unconstitutionally when it denied him parole. The circuit court treated Ducksworth’s petition as one for post-conviction relief and dismissed it based on an erroneous belief that it…