Order By Case String Not Working
So I tweaked the code a bit by testing it in phpMyAdmin, and this is what worked:

SELECT `stock_id`, `stock_ticker`, `stock_simpleName` 
FROM `stocks` 
GROUP BY `stock_ticker`, `stock_simpleName` 
ORDER BY CASE 
    WHEN `stock_ticker` LIKE 'MO%' THEN 1 
    WHEN `stock_simpleName` LIKE 'MO%' THEN 2 
    ELSE 3 
END 
LIMIT 5


I just removed the WHERE Statement entirely. It works exactly like I needed it to. I thought WHERE was always required for any statement that succeeds the FROM table.column part of the query. `