Three Jackson residents are suing to stop House Bill 1020, saying the new law violates the Mississippi Constitution and dilutes local voting power with unelected, state-appointed judges.
Under H.B. 1020, Mississippi Supreme Court Chief Justice Michael K. Randolph, who is white, is required to appoint four circuit judges to hear cases in Jackson starting on May 9 and a judge for a new municipal court in the city’s Capitol Complex Improvement District starting in 2024. The law authorizes the circuit court judges until 2026 and the municipal court until 2027.
Lawyers from the MacArthur Justice Center at the University of Mississippi School of Law, the Mississippi Center for Justice, and the ACLU of Mississippi are representing the plaintiffs, who are Ann Saunders, Sabreen Sharrieff and Dorothy Triplett.
Click this image to read the lawsuit.
The plaintiffs argue in the complaint that just “half of the judges will be elected by Hinds County voters as required by the Constitution, and citizens of Hinds County will be just as likely to go before a circuit judge who is not elected—and who may have no connection to the county or its residents—as one who is.”
“Unlike the Court’s elected judges, these appointed judges need not reside in or have any connection to Hinds County. Thus H.B. 1020 singles out only the circuit in Hinds County—which is nearly 75% Black—for this extraordinary departure from constitutional requirements,” the plaintiffs continue. “It does not require or permit the Chief Justice to appoint a single circuit judge in any of Mississippi’s 21 other circuit court districts or 81 other counties.”
“The residents of Hinds County will be deprived of their constitutional right to vote for local circuit judges and to have their rights determined by courts legally exercising jurisdiction over them pursuant to the authority of the Mississippi Constitution.”
The organizations filed the lawsuit in the Hinds County Chancery Court Monday after the NAACP filed a lawsuit on Saturday, April 18, against H.B. 1020 and another new law that gives the state-run Capitol Police jurisdiction over the entire city. Gov. Tate Reeves signed both bills into law
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