Mississippi Supreme Court elections throw defendants’ rights into jeopardy

This article was published in collaboration between Bolts and The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system. Sign up for the newsletter here.

Mississippi voters handed a defeat to a conservative justice on the state Supreme Court and forced a moderate justice into a Nov. 26 runoff, with the end result potentially making the court more open to considering the rights of criminals.

The nine-member court is largely conservative, but the justices have recently split on high-profile decisions that have had a major impact on state politics, including a ruling that struck down citizen-led ballot initiatives in Mississippi and its majority banning some state control over local criminal proceedings made possible. Black capital. The court has also issued rulings that have resulted in the state becoming increasingly unfavorable to defendants who appeal their cases.

“The ability of death row inmates in particular and inmates in general to access the courts has recently been significantly limited,” said Matthew Steffey, a professor at Mississippi College School of Law The Marshall Project – Jackson And screws after the November 5th election.

Judge Dawn H. Beam joined the majority in these decisions and gained a reputation for being hostile to criminal appeals. She ran for re-election this fall as the Republican Party’s preferred candidate. However, she lost on Nov. 5 in the state’s Second District to David P. Sullivan, a defense attorney who has worked as a public defender.

Mississippi’s judicial elections are nonpartisan, and Sullivan has given few explicit signals about his judicial leanings. He has supported at least some criminal justice reforms and would be the third judge with defense experience on the court. Some reformers across the country have pushed for more professional diversity on the bench.

Even if Sullivan turns out to be more centrist or independent on criminal justice than Beam, an overall shift in power on the court will depend on the outcome of a runoff election next week.

Two-term Judge Jim Kitchens and his challenger Jenifer B. Branning will face off in the Nov. 26 runoff election after neither won more than 50% of the vote on Nov. 5. The Supreme Court’s central district, including Hinds County, the home of Jackson. Throughout the campaign, the state Republican Party attacked Kitchens, while the party supported Branning, a Republican state senator with a conservative voting record.

Kitchens is one of two reliably moderate to liberal chief justices. Judges from another group of four also sometimes deviate from the majority but can be more unpredictable, and this group does not vote as a bloc.

Quinn Yeargain, a Michigan State University law professor who closely follows state courts, recently analyzed the courts’ voting patterns and concluded that Beam has consistently been more conservative than Kitchens in recent cases. Yeargain told The Marshall Project – Jackson And screws that conservative and liberal voters often have little idea how to select a candidate in judicial elections. “It is very difficult to categorize the judges,” they said.

Sullivan, whose father was a Mississippi Supreme Court justice from 1984 to 2000, described himself as a “conservative” throughout his campaign. But he has also emphasized the value of judicial independence and criticized Beam for campaigning for support from the state Republican Party.

“I think that upset a lot of people,” Sullivan told the SunHerald newspaper, discussing Beam’s use of the recommendation. “Judges are impartial for a reason. A judge’s impartiality could be called into question.”

Sullivan has extensive legal experience, but much of his career has focused on private criminal defense, while he has also performed some public defense roles. He told The Marshall Project And Mississippi today that he supported a new administrative rule issued by the state Supreme Court in 2023 that requires continued legal representation for poor offenders from the start of their trial. An investigation by The Marshall Project, ProPublica and the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal However, last year it was discovered that many courts were not ready to implement the new representation rules at that time.

During the campaign, Sullivan told The Marshall Project And Mississippi today that more work is needed to improve public defense.

Kitchens has also advocated for public defender reforms during his two terms on the court. He told a committee of lawmakers last year that “the playing field is far from leveled” between prosecutors and poor defendants.

On other criminal justice issues, he sometimes disagreed with views that upheld death sentences. His decisions scrutinized prosecutors’ conduct and inadequate legal representation.

Branning, the Republican senator, has a voting record on criminal justice issues that suggests a tougher approach to criminals. She has supported higher mandatory minimum sentences and reclassifying misdemeanors as felonies, opposed expanding probation and was among the few lawmakers to vote against legalizing medical marijuana.

She also supported expanding the jurisdiction of a controversial state police force in the majority-black city of Jackson, as well as greater state control over many crimes in Jackson. The Supreme Court unanimously curtailed much of the state’s power in these crimes, but the majority retained some control, with Kitchens and another justice dissenting.

Branning did not respond to questions from The Marshall Project – Jackson And Mississippi today during the Nov. 5 campaign about her possible legal discontinuance.

Kitchens was a prosecutor and then in private practice before moving to the bench. Branning is a practicing attorney who typically handles civil cases.

The winner of the Nov. 26 runoff will join Sullivan in a court that in recent years has limited the ability of people who say the legal system has wronged them to seek legal help, legal experts said The Marshall Project – Jackson And screws this month.

Krissy Nobile, director of the state’s Office of Capital Post-Conviction Counsel, said it has become “increasingly difficult to correct a wrongful conviction.” Her office provides legal advice to needy people on death row.

She said a number of recent cases demonstrate the hurdles the Supreme Court has erected for defendants to appeal their convictions and show indifference to civil rights violations. Kitchens disagreed with the majority in whole or in part on all appeals, which the court unanimously rejected.

In a case earlier this year, the court decided to impose a fine on an imprisoned person for making future post-conviction restitution requests that were unfounded. Kitchens joined a dissent condemning the fine. In another case, the court rejected a man who argued that his lawyers were ineffective and that they had failed to challenge prosecutorial misconduct or false forensic evidence presented by a coroner with a checkered past. The court’s majority denied the request, overturning a precedent that allowed ineffective counsel as sufficient grounds to give a case new consideration in some types of appeals. Kitchens, along with two other justices, dissented.

“In Mississippi, the court has ruled for decades that it would correct errors when a person’s constitutional rights were violated,” Nobile said. However, she added that this has changed significantly. Now, if you find a terrible lawyer who rushes your case, “you’re out of luck,” she said, “even if your basic constitutional rights have clearly been violated.”

To the court’s majority, Nobile added: “The legal formalities now take precedence over a person’s constitutional rights.”

The runoff election is the country’s final Supreme Court race of the year. Thirty-two states held elections for their supreme courts earlier this year, creating a muddled picture, with liberals and conservatives each gaining ground in different places. screws Reports.

The outcome of the runoff election in Mississippi will depend heavily on voter turnout and the composition of the electorate. In the Supreme Court Central District, voters in the Nov. 5 presidential election were very narrowly divided between Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump, but the runoff comes just two days before Thanksgiving and is likely to result in a sharp decline in voter turnout . Branning received 42% of the vote in the first round, Kitchens 36%, with three other candidates making up the remainder.

The same day, there will also be a runoff election in the Gulf Coast Region between Amy Lassiter St. Pé and Jennifer Schloegel for a vacancy on the state Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeal hears both criminal and civil cases appealed from lower courts. The Mississippi Supreme Court can hear cases directly on appeal or assign cases to the Court of Appeals.

Observers agreed that, given the national legal backdrop, neither a Kitchens victory nor a Branning victory would result in a game-changing reversal, as neither outcome would reverse the court’s conservative bias. Still, a slight shift could impact some of the most controversial cases, such as a rare 5-4 decision upholding the death sentence in the Willie Manning case.

A Kitchen victory combined with Sullivan’s surprise earlier this month would give the Republican Party rare setbacks in a state where it has been dominant and enable moderates to further increase their numbers in future elections.

“You could end up with a normal conservative court,” said law professor Yeargain, “instead of one of the most conservative courts in the country.”

The story has been updated to reflect the latest count of Nov. 5 ballots in the Mississippi Supreme Court’s First District.