A federal judge will decide in the coming months whether Black Mississippians have a fair chance to elect candidates to the Mississippi Supreme Court and whether the Legislature should redraw districts give those Black voters more power.
Attorneys representing citizens and politicians from the Jackson Metro Area and the Delta capped off a nearly two-week long trial bench trial in Oxford on Thursday before U.S. District Judge Sharion Aycock
Aycock will eventually make a determination whether the current district lines used to elect justices to the state’s highest court violate the federal Voting Rights Act.
Mississippi law establishes three Supreme Court districts, commonly referred to as the Northern, Central and Southern districts. Voters elect three justices from each to make up the nine-member court. These districts have not been redrawn since 1987.
About 38% of Mississippi residents are Black. Yet eight of the current justices are white, only one is Black. Four Black justices have served on the Mississippi Supreme Court in the state’s history, and never more than one at a time.
The plaintiffs in the case, which include Democratic state Sen. Derrick Simmons of Greenville and Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Ty Pinkins, argue this underrepresentation exists because the current lines fragment Black votes in the state.
“The plaintiffs merely seek to alter the lines so that Black voters get a fair shot,” Ari Savitzky, an ACLU attorney who is representing the plaintiffs, said during closing arguments on Thursday.
The main district at issue in the case is the current Central District, which comprises a portion of the majority-Black Delta and the capital’s Metro Area. Currently, two white justices, Kenny Griffis and James Kitchens, and one Black justice, Leslie King, represent the district.
But the three-member State Board of Election Commissioners, composed of three Republican statewide officials, argued roughly 51% of the Central District’s voting-age population is Black, and if a majority of eligible Black voters exist in the area, then it should create an equal playing field for Black candidates to get elected.
“If the district lines aren’t denying them equality, this case is over,” Michael Wallace, an attorney representing the state, said.
All four Black Mississippians who have been elected to the Supreme Court were first appointed to the post by governors and then later won election to the post as incumbents. They all have come from the Central District.
In 2020, Court of Appeals Judge Latrice Westbrooks attempted to become the first Black Mississippian to be elected to the Supreme Court without first being appointed to a vacant seat by a governor. She lost a close election to Griffis, who was running for the post for the first time after being appointed to a vacant slot on the court by then-Gov. Phil Bryant.
Before Westbrooks, Democratic state Rep. Earle Banks of Jackson in 2012 also attempted to become the first Black Mississippian to win a Supreme Court seat without first obtaining a gubernatorial appointment, but he was defeated by Chief Justice Bill Waller, Jr, who is white.
Judge Sharion Aycock
Wallace argued that these elections were outliers because the 2020 election happened during the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, and Waller won because he was a well-liked incumbent who attracted broad support across racial groups.
The three Supreme Court districts are also the same districts used to elect the three-member Public Service and Transportation commissions.
To bolster the state’s claim, Wallace pointed to the 2023 statewide election where DeKeither Stamps won a seat on the Central District Public Service Commission and Willie Simmons won a seat on the Transportation Commission. Both are Black.
“Black power is working pretty well in this district,” Wallace said.
The trial’s conclusion comes on the heels of a three-judge panel last month ordering legislators to redraw some legislative districts to replace ones where Black voting power is currently diluted. That ruling came in a lawsuit that is separate from the suit over judicial districts.
Aycock was not one of the judges who presided over the lawsuit on legislative districts. But she joked with attorneys at the end of the judicial redistricting trial that she wishes the case before her involved a three-judge panel to help her reach a final decision in a weighty case that has the potential to reshape the state’s highest court.
The parties will have 30 days to submit final court papers to Aycock, and she will deliver a final opinion after those submissions. After the ruling, an aggrieved party could appeal to the New Orleans-based U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit.
If the federal courts rule in favor of the plaintiffs and determine the districts should be redrawn, state lawmakers would be tasked with creating the new districts. If the Legislature cannot agree on new maps, Aycock would likely be tasked with drawing the maps.
The current Central District line stretches East to West across the central part of the state. Plaintiffs argue that the district should be redrawn to closely mirror the state’s 2nd Congressional District, which runs North to South and includes all of the Delta, Hinds County and most of southwest Mississippi.
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