The Short and Unhappy Career of Frank Melton, Mayor

David Weigel | November 16, 2006

It looks increasingly like Mayor Frank Melton, the Yosemite Sam-esque shogun of Jackson, Mississippi, won't get to serve out his term.

The 57-year-old first-term mayor was accused of carrying a gun onto the campus of the Mississippi College School of Law, a felony, which he denied. He and prosecutors agreed to reduce that charge to a misdemeanor; avoiding jail time and removal from office.

But article six, section 175 of the Mississippi Constitution, titled: liability and punishment of public officers says: "All public officers, for wilful neglect of duty or misdemeanor in office, shall be liable to presentment or indictment by a grand jury; and, upon conviction, shall be removed from office, and otherwise punished as may be prescribed by law.

The simple solution: Draft Shaq!

Comments

|11.16.06 @ 7:22AM|#

This is a slam dunk. What could go wrong?

Sandy|11.16.06 @ 7:41AM|#

Hmmm...if Shaq carries a gun in a drug raid, will he be immune because he's an honorary member of a drug task force?

Julian Sanchez|11.16.06 @ 8:32AM|#

Wow... Is he serious? Did they actually run a story that hinges on this illiterate's failure to ask someone with a clue whether "misdemeanor in office" as used a century ago meant the same thing as a "misdemeanor" in the contemporary penal code? That's one for the blooper reel.

John M. Joy|11.16.06 @ 9:18AM|#

I'm sure they're fishing for a way to bounce the guy from office. A quick Google on "Frank Melton" reveals that he's... well, the phrase "piece of work" doesn't do justice.

That being said... I'm unfamiliar with Mississippi law, but I'm surprised that, as a chief executive officer of a municipality, he can't claim some sort of ex officio law enforcement title, thus bypassing the "you cannot carry here" laws.

JMJ

|11.16.06 @ 9:42AM|#

Frank Melton is a strange, disturbed man. You can check out some of his activities on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Melton.

"Misdemeanor in office" may be a term of art that means "misdemeanor in the course of, or abuse of one's public authority," though I don't know about that.

|11.16.06 @ 4:00PM|#

Nice Hemmingway reference in the title, Dave.

Larry A|11.17.06 @ 11:25AM|#

Irony alert: Frank Melton is one of the mayors active in Chicago mayor Bloomberg's anti-gun campaign.

Yosemite Sam would take this no-good varmint to the woodshed.