The 2023 legislature not only expanded the Capitol Complex Improvement District and its police force, but it also created a special one-judge CCID court to supplement Jackson’s existing municipal court. The Mississippi Supreme Court held that the legislature had the constitutional authority to create the court, but that does not mean it was a good idea.
The ostensible purpose of the legislation was to deal with serious crimes, but the CCID court has no jurisdiction over trials for serious crimes. Jackson does not need another municipal judge. It already has seven. And traffic offenders beware: Unlike a municipal judge, the CCID judge can send an offender to state prison.
In short, the court is a grotesque creation whose life the legislature should end as quickly as possible, even though the state and federal courts have refused to kill it when asked to do so in suits that challenged its constitutionality.
Jackson has a serious problem with serious crime. More specifically, its murder rate per capita in 2021 led the nation. The legislature responded by creating the CCID and providing more money for both prosecutors and the city police. All of that made sense.
But the CCID court they created plays no role in the prevention of serious crimes. It has no authority to try a murder case, or even to try some other felony. Its jurisdiction is limited to petty crimes and “violations of the motor vehicle and traffic laws of this state, and violations of the City of Jackson’s traffic ordinance or ordinances related to the disturbance of the public peace” in the CCID.
The legislature may have thought that it was creating something other than a municipal court, but the Mississippi Supreme Court decision emphasized that the CCID court is just another municipal court. The state constitution only allows a court with appointed judges if its decisions can be reviewed by a court of elected judges. The Supreme Court said that, because the CCID judge is appointed by the Supreme Court’s chief justice, that judge’s decisions had to be appealable to circuit court in the same way that the decisions of municipal judges, who are appointed by the city, are appealable.
Once the Supreme Court made it clear that the CCID court was nothing other than a more limited municipal court, it became obvious that there is nothing to gain by having a specially-created municipal judge. Jackson already has seven municipal judges who are fully capable of handling the entire docket of preliminary criminal matters and motor vehicle and traffic offenses. They are not overworked. In fact, state law would already allow the appointment of three more municipal judges if they were needed. Apparently they are not.
And if the volume of traffic and other minor offense convictions should increase, that would only add to the number of appeals that would have to be decided by overworked circuit judges, who do have responsibility for the disposition of murder and other serious criminal cases.
But that duplication and waste is not the only peculiar characteristic of the CCID judge statute. The city already has a court clerk and courtroom, but the legislation requires yet another clerk and courtroom for the CCID judge. The city appoints municipal prosecutors but the Attorney General will appoint the CCID prosecutor. In addition, unlike a municipal judge, the CCID judge can send an offender to state prison rather than to the municipal jail. The CCID covers a wide area – all the way from Jackson State to Ridgewood Road. And, according to the Supreme Court, the arresting officer can decide whether to send an offender to the CCID court rather than a municipal court.
So the many if not most of the readers of the Northside Sun who travel through the CCID on a daily basis would do well to be especially polite if stopped for a traffic offense in the CCID. If convicted they will be at the mercy of an arresting officer who can put them before a prosecutor appointed by the state and a judge who has the power to send them to state prison.
It is worth observing that, at least for traffic offenses committed during the legislative session, the legislators will not run this risk. The state constitution says legislators cannot be arrested for traffic and other similar offenses during the legislative session. Police generally interpret this as an immunity from prosecution. So the offending legislator will not be subject to the same risk of imprisonment as an ordinary citizen, at least not during the legislative session.
The legislative immunity does not apply to violations of “ordnances related to disturbance of the public peace,” which are also within CCID jurisdiction. For such an offense, both an unruly citizen who holds up a protest sign, and the obstreperous legislator who insists on speaking out of turn, risk prosecution and imprisonment. But we can assume that a CCID prosecutor and judge would think twice before sending a legislator to state prison, except perhaps when the legislator happened to belong to a minority party in the legislature.
The Supreme Court has said the CCID court cannot be the court the legislature may have thought it was creating. The CCID court is a waste. It has unreasonable powers. It sheds an unflattering light on its creators. It should be abolished.
Luther Munford is a Northsider.
