Mississippi Today
Does Mississippi’s new state law restrict citizens’ right to protest?
Whether Mississippi can limit impromptu citizen protests around state-owned buildings rests with a federal judge overseeing a lawsuit challenging how a state-run police and court in Jackson operates.
Senate Bill 2343, passed in the 2023 legislative session, became law in July. It calls for prior written approval for public demonstrations on a street or sidewalk at the Capitol or state-owned buildings or one where a state agency operates by the public safety commissioner or the chief of the Capitol Police, which falls under his agency.
At an Aug. 8 meeting, Public Safety Commissioner Sean Tindell said the agency is considering the First Amendment as it drafts regulations, and it wants to balance a right to speech with public safety. An agency spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
Critics of SB 2343 say the law would limit the right to protest that is founded in the First Amendment, and it could have a chilling effect on speech because of potential consequences, such as arrest, conviction in the soon-to be operating Capitol Complex Improvement District court and possible time served for a misdemeanor at the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility rather than a county jail.
“It’s the law itself where the problem lies,” said Frank Rosenblatt, a Mississippi College School of Law associate professor who teaches classes about constitutional law and the First Amendment.
In First Amendment law, speech regulations in a traditional public forum, such as sidewalks and public streets outside state-owned buildings, typically need to meet several requirements: They are content neutral, are narrowly tailored to serve a significant government interest and leave open alternatives for speech.
Rosenblatt doesn’t believe the court will be satisfied with the Department of Public Safety’s “blanket explanation” of public safety as a reason to restrict speech.
U.S. District Court Judge Henry Wingate granted a preliminary injunction of SB 2343 last year in an ongoing lawsuit that consolidated a challenge of the law with a suit challenging House Bill 1020, which established the CCID court and directed state officials to make judicial and prosecutor appointments to the court.
Because a preliminary injunction of SB 2343 is still in effect, DPS currently cannot enforce any regulations it adopts stemming from the law.
Under the Mississippi Administrative Procedures Act, a public meeting about any state agency’s proposed regulations can be held if at least 10 members of the public request one in writing.
This threshold was met for the regulations DPS is drafting for SB 2343, leading to the Aug. 8 meeting at the Capitol.
Rosenblatt and one of his law students, Ren Allen, spoke during the public comment section and said they were seeking clarity about how the agency is writing the regulations, including how it would consider the First Amendment, how it defines public safety and wellbeing.
“I don’t have a lot of faith that this proceeding changed anyone’s mind at DPS about moving forward with the regulation implementation,” said Allen, who is in her final year of law school. “I hope I’m wrong and I hope that they heard the arguments and heard from their citizens.”
Draft regulations posted on the state’s administrative bulletin refer to a number of types of demonstrations including parades, athletics, block parties, festivals and other special events where there is expected to be 25 or more people who could be reasonably expected to block entrance and exit from any state building.
Requests for approval would need to be submitted at least 30 days before the event date, according to the draft regulations.
Approval or denial of a request would take place no longer than 10 days after receipt for events with a pre-established route. Action on special events would be taken no longer than four days after a request for approval. Written notification would be provided of the request’s outcome, including reasons for conditional approval or denial, according to the draft regulations.
In recent years, a number of demonstrations have taken place at the Capitol and other state buildings, including demonstrations about Jackson’s water system issues that passed by the Governor’s Mansion, protests of the U.S. Supreme Court overturn of Roe v. Wade and gatherings by residents and public officials to speak out against legislation.
A proposed 30-day minimum of notice can limit people’s ability to protest about current events, Rosenblatt said.
“All of those things would be off limits for people to speak about,” he said.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1875
Nov. 2, 1875
The first Mississippi Plan, which included violence against Black Americans to keep them from voting, resulted in huge victories for white Democrats across the state.
A year earlier, the Republican Party had carried a majority of the votes, and many Black Mississippians had been elected to office. In the wake of those victories, white leagues arose to challenge Republican rule and began to use widespread violence and fraud to recapture control of the state.
Over several days in September 1875, about 50 Black Mississippians were killed along with white supporters, including a school teacher who worked with the Black community in Clinton.
The governor asked President Ulysses Grant to intervene, but he decided against intervening, and the violence and fraud continued. Other Southern states soon copied the Mississippi plan.
John R. Lynch, the last Black congressman for Mississippi until the 1986 election of Mike Espy, wrote: “It was a well-known fact that in 1875 nearly every Democratic club in the State was converted into an armed military company.”
A federal grand jury concluded: “Fraud, intimidation, and violence perpetrated at the last election is without a parallel in the annals of history.”
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Mississippi Today’s NewsMatch Campaign is Here: Support Journalism that Strengthens Mississippi
High-quality journalism like ours depends on reader support; without it, we simply couldn’t exist. That’s why we’re proud to join the NewsMatch movement, a national initiative aimed at raising $50 million for nonprofit newsrooms that serve communities like ours here in Mississippi, where access to reliable information has often been limited.
In a time when trusted journalists and media sources are disappearing, we believe the stakes couldn’t be higher. Without on-the-ground, trustworthy reporting, civic engagement suffers, accountability falters and corruption often goes unaddressed. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
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We’ll examine what’s at stake if local newsrooms lose press freedoms and will discuss how you, as members of the public, can help protect it. This event is open to Mississippi Today and Verite News members as a special thank-you for supporting local journalism and standing with us in this mission. Donate today to RSVP!
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This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Hinds County loses fight over control of jail
The Hinds County sheriff and Board of Supervisors have lost an appeal to prevent control of its jail by a court-appointed receiver and an injunction that orders the county to address unconstitutional conditions in the facility.
Two members from a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with decisions by U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves to appoint a receiver to oversee day-to-day jail operations and keep parts of a previous consent decree in place to fix constitutional violations, including a failure to protect detainees from harm.
However, the appeals court called the new injunction “overly broad” in one area and is asking Reeves to reevaluate the scope of the receivership.
The injunction retained provisions relating to sexual assault, but the appeals court found the provisions were tied to general risk of violence at the jail, rather than specific concerns about the Prison Rape Elimination Act. The court reversed those points of the injunction and remanded them to the district court so the provisions can be removed.
The court also found that the receiver should not have authority over budgeting and staff salaries for the Raymond Detention Center, which could be seen as “federal intrusion into RDC’s budget” – especially if the receivership has no end date.
Hinds County Board of Supervisors President Robert Graham was not immediately available for comment Friday. Sheriff Tyree Jones declined to comment because he has not yet read the entire court opinion.
In 2016, the Department of Justice sued Hinds County alleging a pattern or practice of unconstitutional conditions in four of its detention facilities. The county and DOJ entered a consent decree with stipulated changes to make for the jail system, which holds people facing trial.
“But the decree did not resolve the dispute; to the contrary, a yearslong battle ensued in the district court as to whether and to what extent the County was complying with the consent decree,” the appeals court wrote.
This prompted Reeves to hold the county in contempt of court twice in 2022.
The county argued it was doing its best to comply with the consent decree and spending millions to fix the jail. One of the solutions they offered was building a new jail, which is now under construction in Jackson.
The county had a chance to further prove itself during three weeks of hearings held in February 2022. Focuses included the death of seven detainees in 2021 from assaults and suicide and issues with staffing, contraband, old infrastructure and use of force.
Seeing partial compliance by the county, in April 2022 Reeves dismissed the consent decree and issued a new, shorter injunction focused on the jail and removed some provisions from the decree.
But Reeves didn’t see improvement from there. In July 2022, he ordered receivership and wrote that it was needed because of an ongoing risk of unconstitutional harm to jail detainees and staff.
The county pushed back against federal oversight and filed an appeal, arguing that there isn’t sufficient evidence to show that there are current and ongoing constitutional violations at the jail and that the county has acted with deliberate indifference.
Days before the appointed receiver was set to take control of the jail at the beginning of 2023, the 5th Circuit Court ordered a stay to halt that receiver’s work. The new injunction ordered by Reeves was also stayed, and a three-person jail monitoring team that had been in place for years also was ordered to stop work.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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