Attorney 'fired' by accused murderer

Accused murderer James Cobb Hutto cannot afford an attorney but doesn't want Hinds County Public Defender Bill LaBarre to represent him.

"He fired me," said LaBarre, who appeared before special Circuit Judge L. Breland Hilburn on Thursday on a motion to withdraw as Hutto's attorney. "I went to speak with him. He told me my services were no longer needed."

Hutto did not give a reason, LaBarre said.

The state Office of Capital Defense Counsel now will take over representing Hutto on a capital murder charge accusing him of beating to death an 81-year-old Clinton woman who befriended him last year.

Andre de Gruy, director of the Capital Defense Counsel office, said Friday he went to visit Hutto at the Hinds County Detention Center to make sure he wanted an attorney.

"I don't know what the problem was, but he didn't want Bill to represent him," de Gruy said.

Normally, his office works with the public defender's office in representing a defendant in a death penalty case.

He didn't know it when he visited Hutto, but de Gruy said Hutto had written him a letter last week asking him to become his attorney.

Hutto, a convicted sex offender from Jasper, Ala., was indicted in March in the death of Ethel Winstead Simpson. He was returned earlier this year to Mississippi from Alabama, where he also faces charges.

Hutto met Simpson at the Clinton Baptist Healthplex in September 2010, and she later was seen on surveillance cameras leaving a Vicksburg casino with him, authorities have said. She was missing for several days before her body was found Sept. 17 on a hog farm in Edwards.

In Alabama, Hutto is accused of killing his aunt, Virginia Rardon, 68, of Birmingham.

He also is charged with attempted murder and first-degree robbery in connection with an attack on Mark Ambers Cox, 56, of Opelika, Ala.

Alabama officials chose to allow Mississippi to have the first crack at Hutto. During one court appearance in Alabama, Hutto told a judge, "They call me the hit man."

To comment on this story, call Jimmie E. Gates at (601) 961-7212.