<p>May 20, 2015 â Noura Jackson (middle) confers with her attorneys Michael Working (left) and Valerie Corder (right) before pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter in the 2005 stabbing death of her 39-year-old mother, Jennifer Jackson. Jackson, was initially convicted of second-degree murder in 2009 and was awaiting retrial of the case before offering a Alford Plea to the lesser crime. As part of the plea Jackson, who has served nine years, agreed to a 15-year sentence as a career offender. (Mark Weber/The Commercial Appeal)</p>

By Samantha Bryson,Beth Warren

Noura Jackson, 28, sobbed at Jail East when her attorneys told her about a plea offer that would shave years off her prison stint. After nearly a decade behind bars, she soon would be free — but at a cost.

Her first words, “But my mom! No one will ever figure out who killed my mom.”

Prosecutors maintain they know the answer: an entitled and haughty teen who stabbed her mother more than 50 times to protect her partying lifestyle.

A Shelby County jury won’t get to decide. Neither side wanted to back down, but both acknowledged obstacles to winning in court, agreeing to meet in the middle during a plea deal finalized Wednesday.

Jackson entered an Alford plea, also known as a “best interest plea,” to voluntary manslaughter, a killing that was provoked and in the heat of passion.

It’s an unexpected development after nine months of contentious pretrial hearings with no trial date in sight.

After Wednesday’s hearing, Jackson’s attorneys, Valerie Corder and Michael Working, immediately faxed the plea agreement to officials with the state Department of Corrections to allow her to go home.

They maintain that, with good time credits, she should already be eligible for release. It is unclear how long that process will take.

Jackson refused prosecutors’ initial offer to confess to the slaying and apologize.

She insisted on maintaining her innocence and only agreed to a plea deal Tuesday after prosecutors met with her attorneys at a Cooper-Young coffee shop and offered to allow her to enter the Alford plea. That meant she didn’t have to admit guilt but had to accept the punishment and burden of being a felon.

Jackson accepted a 15-year sentence. Voluntary manslaughter, unlike second-degree murder, allows release after 30 percent of the sentence has been served, and Jackson has already served nearly a decade, or 60 percent of the sentence.

Jackson’s plea is similar to the deal that freed the West Memphis Three in 2011. Damien Echols, who spent years on Arkansas Death Row, entered an Alford plea to first-degree murder along with Jessie Misskelley and Jason Baldwin in the 1993 slayings of three 8-year-old boys. All three defendants, teens at the time of their arrests, still insist they are innocent.

One of their investigators, Rachael Geiser, also worked on Jackson’s case and was in court for its conclusion Wednesday.

“It brings back a lot of memories about Damien,” she said. “I’m thrilled for Noura.”

Relatives left without commenting about the deal.

Jackson initially wanted a chance to prove her innocence before a new jury, but grew increasingly skeptical of receiving a fair trial while waiting in vain for nine months for a bond hearing.

“She would have fought an additional 10 years on principle,” Working said. “But who wants to give up their 30s on principle?”

After the hearing special prosecutor Michael Dunavant said he was pleased with the outcome of the case because his office’s priority was to make sure there was a “finding of guilt” on the record for the knowing, intentional killing of Jennifer Jackson.

The fact that Noura Jackson insisted on being allowed to legally maintain her innocence by entering the Alford plea “was not a consideration” in his decision to accept the negotiated settlement, he said.

Prosecutors initially sought a conviction in 2009 for first-degree murder, a killing with intent and premeditation, and a life sentence. But Jackson was sentenced to 20 years and nine months for second-degree murder, an intentional killing without premeditation. Working said she wouldn’t have been eligible for parole until 2023.

Dunavant fell short of saying the victim’s family supported the plea deal but said his office had remained “respectful of their input and opinions” in its pursuit of a resolution.

In coming to his decision, Dunavant also said he had carefully considered what the Supreme Court already acknowledged last year in its written ruling — that the state’s case against Jackson was almost entirely circumstantial.

Jackson’s attorneys say the teen and her mother were close, sharing a love of shopping sprees and nights of movies and popcorn. Prosecutors, however, say Jennifer Jackson, a successful bond trader, was trying to curtail her daughter’s drug and alcohol abuse. With her mother gone, they argued, the teen could do as she pleased and gain unimpeded access to her deceased father’s estate.

Faced with the challenge of building a new case 10 years after the stabbing, Dunavant said he expected many of the state’s 2009 trial witness to be hard to find or unavailable. He also acknowledged that the evidence about Jackson’s drug use and sexual activities that was heavily relied upon by prosecutors at the 2009 trial would not be allowed in a retrial, per the Supreme Court’s admonition.

Defense attorneys heavily criticized this tactic, which they say amounted to little more than irrelevant and prejudicial character assassination.

Dunavant was tapped in March to take over the prosecution after Shelby County Dist. Atty. Amy Weirich, who had been the lead prosecutor during the first trial, voluntarily recused herself and her office from the retrial.

In its ruling, the Supreme Court said Weirich committed several errors, including during her closing argument when she appeared to directly address the defendant and point to a gap in her alibi.

Weirich also neglected to hand over a key witness statement to the defense, which she said had been misplaced in the flap of a trial notebook by a member of her staff. According to the high court, that statement would have been critical in the defense’s ability to cast doubt on testimony that placed Jackson at the scene of the crime.

On Wednesday, Jackson’s demeanor was polite and somber as she answered “Yes, sir” to a series of questions from Criminal Court Judge Chris Craft, who accepted her plea.

“Ten years is a long time to fight for justice,” said Corder, who’s been Jackson’s lead attorney since 2005. “Miss Jackson is pleased to have a resolution that the state proposed to her that would allow her to put this behind her and to be released very quickly.”