The Mississippi Supreme Court ruled that part of a controversial measure that allowed the state to appoint four unelected special circuit court judges in the majority-Black city of Jackson to oversee the city’s crime and policing is unconstitutional.
State supreme court justices struck down part of the measure that allowed the Chief Justice to appoint those temporary judges rather than continue state constitutional policy that enables the people to elect them.
The part of the measure still at play allows the expansion of the Capitol Complex Improvement District in the city of Jackson and the power of the Capitol Police, as well as the creation of a special circuit district court.
Currently, felony criminal cases are handled by the Hinds County Circuit Court. Had the bill been fully upheld, four special judges would have been appointed to a newly created circuit court in Hinds County, which is more than 70 percent Black. Those judges don’t even have to live in Jackson or Hinds County, but their appointments would have disenfranchised many Black voters of their power to select their own judges.
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The ruling that the state supreme court justices handed down means that judges for that court must be elected instead of appointed.
In a unanimous 8-0 vote, all the justices sided with the plaintiffs that sued the state to challenge House Bill 1020. According to the Mississippi Free Press, they stated that the part of the bill that designates the “creation of four new appointed ‘temporary special circuit judges’ in the Seventh Circuit Court District for a specified, almost-four-year term violates our Constitition’s requirement that circuit judges be elected for a four-year term.”
“While Section 1 calls these new judges ‘special circuit judges’ on paper, we see nothing special or unique about them—certainly nothing expressly tethering…
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