Mississippi Today
Will state’s justices sign off on challenge to separate Jackson court district?
Mississippi Supreme Court Justices heard arguments Thursday that will help them decide the constitutionality of House Bill 1020 – the controversial law that places appointed judges in Hinds County and sets up a separate court system within Jackson.
Attorneys for a lawsuit challenging HB 1020 say it violates the Mississippi Constitution by preventing county residents from electing circuit court judges, and that the Capitol Complex Improvement District court created by the law doesn't meet constitutional requirements.
The state's attorneys say no constitutional issues exist and that a lower court's ruling dismissing the lawsuit should stand.
“This simply boils down to policy disagreement,” said Solicitor General Scott Stewart, who is representing the attorney general and governor.
Cliff Johnson, an attorney for the appellants from the MacArthur Justice Center, said there are limited exceptions of when circuit court judges are not elected by the people, such as when the governor appoints someone if the judge is disqualified or unable to serve.
He argued that state statute has been used to appoint judges, including during the COVID-19 pandemic, but appointing temporary judges alongside elected ones in Hinds County is not constitutional.
Stewart said an appointed judge is not the same as an elected circuit judge, so they don't have to be elected nor do they receive the same protections given to circuit court judges.
HB 1020 has been discussed as a response to addressing a court backlog in Hinds County, but Johnson said the law makes no claim that a crowded docket exists. Regardless, the reason for the law doesn't matter because the circumstances don't justify the actions the Legislature is taking – even in an emergency situation.
“This is exactly the type of situation we should be careful of,” Johnson said.
He noted that the Legislature can address an overcrowded docket without violating the constitution and taking away Hinds County residents' ability to elect judges, such as by
adding elected judges or having the county court help. The Supreme Court can also play a role, Johnson said.
A “far reaching” implication for siding with the state would be taking power away from Hinds County voters and giving it to the Legislature, Johnson said, and he wondered what precedent would be set for its ability to approve appointed judges in other circumstances.
Another topic raised during oral arguments was about the legitimacy of the Capitol Complex Improvement District court.
State constitution places limits on inferior courts created by the Legislature, including requirements that the court be supervised by another and they have the ability to appeal, which the appellants argue is not the case for the CCID court.
Stewart argued the CCID court resembles a municipal court and meets constitutional requirements, including the ability to appeal.
Justice James Kitchens asked where in HB 1020's language does it address that the CCID court appealability, and Stewart replied that existing state law for municipal courts grants the right for appeals to the county court.
Kitchens asked whether municipal courts currently operate like the CCID court, including having the power to send people charged with misdemeanors to the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility.
Justice David Ishee, a former municipal judge, said the requirement is for the court to sentence those charged with misdemeanors to a county jail.
Absent from the oral arguments was Chief Justice Michael Randolph, who recused himself Monday from the appeal because he is a named party in the lawsuit.
HB 1020 directs Randolph to appoint four judges to a Capitol Complex Improvement District court within the Hinds County circuit court. The law was set to go into effect July 1, but it has been paused in another lawsuit in federal court.
During oral arguments, his attorney Mark Nelson said the chief justice's only interest is to protect his office and the court as an institution.
Nelson said Hinds Chancery Judge Dewayne Thomas and U.S. District Court Judge Henry Wingate were correct to remove Randolph from the lawsuit being appealed and a separate federal one on the basis of judicial immunity, which is the idea that judges can't be sued for doing their jobs.
Nelson said appointments are a judicial act covered by immunity. Stewart, the attorney for the state, told the justices to think about the consequences of their ruling, which could mean that the chief justice can't make any appointments and that past ones could be ruled invalid.
Johnson said the judicial immunity doctrine applies to protection from liability for monetary damages, but not for lawsuits seeking prospective relief such as declaratory or injunctive relief.
Dorothy Triplett, one of the three Jackson women who are appellants in the case, said today was the first time she had ever visited the Mississippi Supreme Court, and she didn't expect the lawsuit she joined to go so far.
“I just know I believe in the right to vote and elect judges as stated in the constitution,” she said after the oral arguments.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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Mississippi Today
2024 Mississippi legislative session not good for private school voucher supporters
Despite a recent Mississippi Supreme Court ruling allowing $10 million in public money to be spent on private schools, 2024 has not been a good year for those supporting school vouchers.
School-choice supporters were hopeful during the 2024 legislative session, with new House Speaker Jason White at times indicating support for vouchers.
But the Legislature, which recently completed its session, did not pass any new voucher bills. In fact, it placed tighter restrictions on some of the limited laws the state has in place allowing public money to be spent on private schools.
Notably, the Legislature passed a bill that provides significantly more oversight of a program that provides a limited number of scholarships or vouchers for special-needs children to attend private schools.
Going forward, thanks to the new law, to receive the vouchers a parent must certify that their child will be attending a private school that offers the special needs educational services that will help the child. And the school must report information on the academic progress of the child receiving the funds.
Also, efforts to expand another state program that provides tax credits for the benefit of private schools was defeated. Legislation that would have expanded the tax credits offered by the Children's Promise Act from $8 million a year to $24 million to benefit private schools was defeated. Private schools are supposed to educate low income students and students with special needs to receive the benefit of the tax credits. The legislation expanding the Children's Promise Act was defeated after it was reported that no state agency knew how many students who fit into the categories of poverty and other specific needs were being educated in the schools receiving funds through the tax credits.
Interestingly, the Legislature did not expand the Children's Promise Act but also did not place more oversight on the private schools receiving the tax credit funds.
The bright spot for those supporting vouchers was the early May state Supreme Court ruling. But, in reality, the Supreme Court ruling was not as good for supporters of vouchers as it might appear on the surface.
The Supreme Court did not say in the ruling whether school vouchers are constitutional. Instead, the state's highest court ruled that the group that brought the lawsuit – Parents for Public Schools – did not have standing to pursue the legal action.
The Supreme Court justices did not give any indication that they were ready to say they were going to ignore the Mississippi Constitution's plain language that prohibits public funds from being provided “to any school that at the time of receiving such appropriation is not conducted as a free school.”
In addition to finding Parents for Public Schools did not have standing to bring the lawsuit, the court said another key reason for its ruling was the fact that the funds the private schools were receiving were federal, not state funds. The public funds at the center of the lawsuit were federal COVID-19 relief dollars.
Right or wrong, The court appeared to make a distinction between federal money and state general funds. And in reality, the circumstances are unique in that seldom does the state receive federal money with so few strings attached that it can be awarded to private schools.
The majority opinion written by Northern District Supreme Justice Robert Chamberlin and joined by six justices states, “These specific federal funds were never earmarked by either the federal government or the state for educational purposes, have not been commingled with state education funds, are not for educational purposes and therefore cannot be said to have harmed PPS (Parents for Public Schools) by taking finite government educational funding away from public schools.”
And Southern District Supreme Court Justice Dawn Beam, who joined the majority opinion, wrote separately “ to reiterate that we are not ruling on state funds but American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds … The ARPA funds were given to the state to be used in four possible ways, three of which were directly related to the COVID -19 health emergency and one of which was to make necessary investments in water, sewer or broadband infrastructure.”
Granted, many public school advocates lamented the decision, pointing out that federal funds are indeed public or taxpayer money and those federal funds could have been used to help struggling public schools.
Two justices – James Kitchens and Leslie King, both of the Central District, agreed with that argument.
But, importantly, a decidedly conservative-leaning Mississippi Supreme Court stopped far short – at least for the time being – of circumventing state constitutional language that plainly states that public funds are not to go to private schools.
And a decidedly conservative Mississippi Legislature chose not to expand voucher programs during the 2024 session.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1925
MAY 19, 1925
Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little in Omaha, Nebraska. When he was 14, a teacher asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up and he answered that he wanted to be a lawyer. The teacher chided him, urging him to be realistic. “Why don't you plan on carpentry?”
In prison, he became a follower of Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad. In his speeches, Malcolm X warned Black Americans against self-loathing: “Who taught you to hate the texture of your hair? Who taught you to hate the color of your skin? Who taught you to hate the shape of your nose and the shape of your lips? Who taught you to hate yourself from the top of your head to the soles of your feet? Who taught you to hate your own kind?”
Prior to a 1964 pilgrimage to Mecca, he split with Elijah Muhammad. As a result of that trip, Malcolm X began to accept followers of all races. In 1965, he was assassinated. Denzel Washington was nominated for an Oscar for his portrayal of the civil rights leader in Spike Lee's 1992 award-winning film.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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Mississippi Today
On this day in 1896
MAY 18, 1896
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7-1 in Plessy v. Ferguson that racial segregation on railroads or similar public places was constitutional, forging the “separate but equal” doctrine that remained in place until 1954.
In his dissent that would foreshadow the ruling six decades later in Brown v. Board of Education, Justice John Marshall Harlan wrote that “separate but equal” rail cars were aimed at discriminating against Black Americans.
“In the view of the Constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens,” he wrote. “Our Constitution in color-blind and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law. The humblest is the peer of the most powerful. The law … takes no account of his surroundings or of his color when his civil rights as guaranteed by the supreme law of the land are involved.”
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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