Mississippi Today
Does a backlog in Hinds County courts justify appointing five judges? Other counties could be far worse
Does a backlog in Hinds County courts justify appointing five judges? Other counties could be far worse
Lawmakers backing House Bill 1020 say Hinds County’s backlog of cases is an emergency that justifies having five non-elected judges to pick up the slack.
Cliff Johnson, attorney and director of the MacArthur Justice Center, wants to know whether Hinds County really has the worst case backlog in the state. Bill author Rep. Trey Lamar, R-Senatobia, has said the bill is a way to address crime in Jackson and the backlog in the Hinds court system.
“Our conclusion at this point is that the Legislature could not have made the decision to appoint five temporary judges to the Hinds County Circuit Court based on any meaningful analysis of that court’s dockets as compared to the dockets in any other circuit,” Johnson told Mississippi Today.
The center began calculating the number of open criminal cases in each circuit court district between Jan. 1, 2013 and Feb. 26 before realizing Mississippi Electronic Courts — the only public-facing access to case information — doesn’t keep accurate information on pending cases.
Only about half of all counties in the state use MEC. Without data on pending criminal cases, it is difficult to tell if there are case backlogs anywhere and be able to make comparisons, Johnson said.
Hinds County could benefit from additional elected judges, Johnson said, but he couldn’t find the basis to determine the need to appoint five temporary judges — a number that is greater than the number of elected judges.
Legislation passed in 2018 gives the Supreme Court chief justice the ability to appoint temporary judges “in the event of an emergency or overcrowded docket.”
Johnson said it is unclear whether the Senate version of HB 1020 references this law to make temporary appointments or if the bill is a “novel attempt” to appoint judges without determining the existence of an emergency or an overcrowded docket.
The Senate’s Judiciary A Committee passed HB 1020 with multiple changes: the elimination of a proposed separate, unelected judicial district within Jackson and the expansion of the Capitol Complex Improvement District where the Capitol Police operates.
Hinds County, the Seventh Circuit Court District, had 2,508 pending cases, according to MEC data. That is a load of 627 cases each for four judges, according to the data. Over 230,000 people live in the county.
The First Circuit Court District in the northeast part of the state has 8,522 pending cases. That district also has four judges, and its caseload calculated from MEC data is about 2,130 cases per judge.
That district is made up of seven counties and most of the cases came from the largest, Lee County, which had 2,627 pending cases, according to MEC data.
“As we began running reports on criminal dockets, it appeared to us that the backlog in Hinds County was not significantly worse than many other places in Mississippi,” Johnson said. “In fact, our research showed that according to MEC, even a small county like Lee County had more pending criminal cases than Hinds County.”
Staff from the Lee County Circuit Clerk’s Office and circuit court said Wednesday there is no way to know how many open criminal cases there are. Circuit Clerk Camille Roberts Dulaney did not respond to a request for comment.
The state’s Administrative Office of Courts tracks information about disposed cases across the state, but not current criminal cases, Johnson said. The office’s annual report shows disposition numbers for criminal cases and counts during a 10-year period.
Spokesperson Beverly Kraft referred comment about case backlogs to Greg Snowden, director of the Administrative Office of Courts. He did not respond to a request for comment.
Accurate caseload counts are among issues raised about HB 1020, which is seen by many Jacksonians as a takeover of local control.
“This bill would make Mississippi a model for red states with blue capital cities. At its core, this bill is about lawmakers giving themselves the ability to outmaneuver the federal government,” Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba said in a statement. “So, by policy or through actually preventing people to vote, it still reflects the poorest version of Mississippi.”
The latest version of HB 1020 also gives the Capitol Police concurrent jurisdiction throughout Jackson and beyond the Capitol Complex Improvement District. It would require the city and the Department of Public Safety to sign a memorandum of understanding.
Lumumba said the memorandum isn’t really an agreement between the two parties, and a spokesperson confirmed he would not sign one.
The bill says failure to execute a memorandum of understanding will not affect Capitol Police’s jurisdiction within Jackson, and any disputes about law enforcement function of Capitol Police in the city would be resolved in favor of the DPS commissioner, who oversees the force.
JXN Undivided, a coalition of community groups such as the People’s Advocacy Institute, One Voice and the Mississippi Center for Justice, is speaking out against HB 1020 and circulating a petition titled “Jackson is NOT for the Taking!”
“What is happening in Jackson, Mississippi, is ruthless,” the petition reads. “It is racist. It is dangerously anti-democratic. And it must stop!”
As of Monday, the petition has received over 1,800 signatures and will be sent to Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, who presides over the Senate, the body that is set to vote on HB 1020.
JXN Undivided also has an open survey for people to share information about their encounters with the Capitol Police, including how officers treated them and how many encounters they have had.
To test how accurate MEC’s case information is, Mississippi Today reached out to the seven circuit court clerks in the First District.
Tishomingo County, the smallest in the circuit court district, has 467 open criminal cases, according to MEC data. It’s a number that Circuit Clerk Josh McNatt said is fairly accurate, but may be “a little over exaggerated” but no more than 5 to 10%.
He has been having conversations with the district attorney, judges and public defenders in the county about how to track case information better.
“I’ve been keeping up with this myself because I’ve been concerned about caseloads,” McNatt said.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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Mississippi Today
House gives Senate 5 p.m. deadline to come to table, or legislative session ends with no state budget
The House on Wednesday attempted one final time to revive negotiations between it and the Senate over passing a state budget.
Otherwise, the two Republican-led chambers will likely end their session without funding government services for the next fiscal year and potentially jeopardize state agencies.
The House on Wednesday unanimously passed a measure to extend the legislative session and revive budget bills that had died on legislative deadlines last weekend.
House Speaker Jason White said he did not have any prior commitment that the Senate would agree to the proposal, but he wanted to extend one last offer to pass the budget. White, a Republican from West, said if he did not hear from the Senate by 5 p.m. on Wednesday, his chamber would end its regular session.
“The ball is in their court,” White said of the Senate. “Every indication has been that they would not agree to extend the deadlines for purposes of doing the budget. I don’t know why that is. We did it last year, and we’ve done it most years.”
But it did not appear likely Wednesday afternoon that the Senate would comply.
The Mississippi Legislature has not left Jackson without setting at least most of the state budget since 2009, when then Gov. Haley Barbour had to force them back to set one to avoid a government shutdown.
The House measure to extend the session is now before the Senate for consideration. To pass, it would require a two-thirds majority vote of senators. But that might prove impossible. Numerous senators on both sides of the aisle vowed to vote against extending the current session, and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann who oversees the chamber said such an extension likely couldn’t pass.
Senate leadership seemed surprised at the news that the House passed the resolution to negotiate a budget, and several senators earlier on Wednesday made passing references to ending the session without passing a budget.
“We’ll look at it after it passes the full House,” Senate President Pro Tempore Dean Kirby said.
The House and Senate, each having a Republican supermajority, have fought over many issues since the legislative session began early January.
But the battle over a tax overhaul plan, including elimination of the state individual income tax, appeared to cause a major rift. Lawmakers did pass a tax overhaul, which the governor has signed into law, but Senate leaders cried foul over how it passed, with the House seizing on typos in the Senate’s proposal that accidentally resembled the House’s more aggressive elimination plan.
The Senate had urged caution in eliminating the income tax, and had economic growth triggers that would have likely phased in the elimination over many years. But the typos essentially negated the triggers, and the House and governor ran with it.
The two chambers have also recently fought over the budget. White said he communicated directly with Senate leaders that the House would stand firm on not passing a budget late in the session.
But Senate leaders said they had trouble getting the House to meet with them to haggle out the final budget.
On the normally scheduled “conference weekend” with a deadline to agree to a budget last Saturday, the House did not show, taking the weekend off. This angered Hosemann and the Senate. All the budget bills died, requiring a vote to extend the session, or the governor forcing them into a special session.
If the Legislature ends its regular session without adopting a budget, the only option to fund state agencies before their budgets expire on June 30 is for Gov. Tate Reeves to call lawmakers back into a special session later.
“There really isn’t any other option (than the governor calling a special session),” Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann previously said.
If Reeves calls a special session, he gets to set the Legislature’s agenda. A special session call gives an otherwise constitutionally weak Mississippi governor more power over the Legislature.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Candice Wilder joins Mississippi Today as new higher education reporter
Mississippi Today is pleased to announce that Candice Wilder has joined the newsroom as our newest higher education reporter.
Wilder takes over higher ed coverage from Mississippi Today reporter Molly Minta, who built the beat starting in early 2021 but has since moved to the newsroom’s team covering the city of Jackson.
“I’m thrilled to join a talented and ambitious team of journalists who provide critical news and information to Mississippians,” Wilder said. “Reporting on the state’s colleges and universities at this moment is more important now than ever. My goal is to develop thoughtful coverage and tell crucial stories that will continue to serve and reflect these communities.
Wilder, an Ohio native, was one of 19 founding staff members of Signal Cleveland, an inaugural nonprofit newsroom part of Signal Ohio. There, she developed a beat that provided accessible health news and information to residents of Cleveland. Her work has led to recognitions from the Cleveland Press Club and the Association of Healthcare Journalists.
“We couldn’t be more excited to welcome Candice to our newsroom,” said Adam Ganucheau, Mississippi Today’s editor-in-chief. “So many aspects of the higher education system are under intense scrutiny and attack across the country — from free speech to funding to accountability — and Mississippi is certainly no exception. Our colleges and universities are at the heart of critical conversations about equity, access, and the future of our state as a whole. Candice brings a sharp eye, strong reporting skills, and genuine curiosity to our team, and I’m confident that her work will help Mississippians navigate the often complicated and evolving nature of higher ed here.”
“We’re so happy to have someone with Candice Wilder’s passion and experience to pick up the mantle of higher education reporting at Mississippi Today,” said Debbie Skipper, who will serve as her editor. “Molly Minta set a high standard in our reporting in this area, and I know Candice will maintain that while offering her own professional perspective.”
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
PSC revives solar programs a year after suspending them
The Mississippi Public Service Commission voted unanimously on Tuesday to lift a stay on programs offering incentives for solar power. The same commission voted to suspend the programs last April.
The PSC initially voted in 2024 to suspend three programs: “Solar for Schools,” which allows school districts to essentially build solar panels for free in exchange for tax credits, as well as incentives for battery storage and low-income participants in the state’s “distributed generation” rule. Mississippi’s “distributed generation” rule is similar to net metering in other places, but reimburses customers for less than what most states offer.
Net metering is a program where power companies — in this case Entergy Mississippi and Mississippi Power — reimburse customers who generate their own solar power, often with rooftop panels, and sell any extra power back to the grid.
The PSC suspended the programs in 2024 because, at the time, the federal government was also offering funds through its “Solar for All” initiative. The commission reasoned that the state didn’t need to add incentives, which the previous commission approved in 2022 on top of the new funding. After learning that the state government didn’t receive any “Solar for All” funding, the PSC decided on Tuesday to reverse course.
While the State of Mississippi didn’t receive any of the funding, Hope Enterprise Corp. did get $94 million last year through the program to bring solar power to low-income and disadvantaged homes in the state.
The previous PSC created the “Solar for Schools” program as a way to save school districts money on their power bills to help with other expenses. While no districts were able to make use of the program before the PSC suspended it last year, other districts have seen savings after installing solar panels. Any of the 95 school districts within the Entergy and Mississippi Power grids are eligible for the PSC incentives.
Solar advocates disagreed with the PSC’s assertion that federal “Solar for All” funding would have replaced the PSC programs, which went into effect in January 2023, arguing that the commission’s ruling would scare off potential new business. Those advocates applauded Tuesday’s reversal, saying the incentives will support professions within the solar supply chain such as electricians, roofers, manufacturers and installers.
“Yesterday’s actions by the MPSC sends a strong signal that Mississippi is open for business,” Monika Gerhart, executive director of the Gulf States Renewable Energy Industries Association, said via email. “For schools and homeowners that want to save money on their light bill, yesterday’s vote creates additional savings to install solar.”
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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