(CNN) — A federal court of appeals has delayed the creation of a state-run court system in Jackson, Mississippi – the majority Black, Democratic capital.
CNN obtained an order filed Sunday from the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit that grants a temporary administrative stay until noon Friday.
A hearing is set for Wednesday before US District Judge Henry Wingate, who on Sunday dismissed requests to halt the creation of the state-run court and wrote in his ruling, “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.”
The judge refused to grant a request to halt enactment of the new law on the basis that none of the plaintiffs showed how they would stand to be harmed personally by the appointment of new judges. The judge’s order did not deal with the substance of the plaintiffs’ claims of racial motivation for the law.
House Bill 1020, which Gov. Tate Reeves signed into law in April 2023, would prevent Jackson residents from electing judges within the boundaries of a state-created district called ”the Capitol Complex Improvement District,” which includes the state Capitol building, downtown and Jackson State University.
The bill would allow the state supreme court chief justice to appoint judges, and the state attorney general to appoint prosecutors. CNN previously reported both officials are White and conservative, in contrast to the city’s 82% Black or African American residents, according to latest US Census Bureau data, who have historically voted largely for liberal candidates.
“We appreciate Judge Wingate’s thoughtful consideration and order,” a spokesperson for Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch said in a statement to CNN. “We will be prepared to defend this law on appeal and to perform our duties to help protect the people of Jackson from the stifling, suffocating crime that plagues the City.”
In April 2023, the NAACP filed a lawsuit in a US District Court against Reeves, Fitch and a handful of other leaders in the state. The lawsuit called parts of the HB 1020 law a “racially discriminatory schematic upon Jackson, Mississippi, with its majority Black population.”
CNN has reached out to Reeves for comment, as well as Jackson’s mayor and the NAACP.
The-CNN-Wire
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