Mississippi Judge Rules State Officials Can Move Forward With State-Run Court Creation

A federal judge in Mississippi ruled that he will allow state officials to move forward with the creation of a state-run court in part of the state capital Jackson, ignoring objections from the NAACP. 

In his ruling filed Sunday, U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate dismissed requests to block the new court that was created by the majority-white and Republican-controlled Mississippi Legislature. Jackson, governed by Democrats, is a majority-Black capital city. 

“None of the Plaintiffs has alleged that he or she is in actual or imminent danger of experiencing any concrete and particularized injury resulting from the establishment of the CCID Court or the challenged appointment of a judge or prosecutors for that court,” Wingate wrote in the filing. 

In response to the civil rights group that sued arguing they didn’t feel represented by the chief justice or attorney general. Wingate said it failed to prove they ever complained to local officials or that local officials had been open to listening.

“Further, had the local officials been so obliging, this court is mystified why Jackson’s system of criminal justice is in the deplorable shape it is in, with an overcrowded docket requiring defendants to jettison any notion of a speedy disposition,” Wingate wrote.

Attorneys for the group intend to appeal the ruling.

The group filed the initial suit on behalf of several residents of the city, saying the new court undermines democracy because local voters or local elected officials would not get to select the judge or prosecutors.