I had never been inside the Mississippi Supreme Court building so when my friend Virginia Carlton, a Northsider and state appellate judge, sent me an invitation to the 30th anniversary of the state appellate court, I jumped at the chance to go.
There was a good crowd of 100 or more people crowded in the main court chamber and a spillover room. Most of the people there were attorneys of some sort. I hadn’t seen that many suits in one room in a long time.
A panel of judges led the discussion about the origin and history of the appellate court which was founded 30 years ago. On the panel was state appellate court chief Judge Donna Barnes; Leslie Southwick, a former state appellate judge now a federal judge on the fifth circuit court of appeals; Leslie King, a former state appellate judge and former state representative; and Mike Mills, a former state appellate judge, state representative and current federal district judge in the Mississippi northern district.
Just below the dais where the panel sat was a special area for former state appellate judges. There must have been 25 or so of them, mostly retired.
Judge Southwick, who has written several lengthy law journal articles on the history of Mississippi courts, led the discussion, which started about the formation of the court.
For years the state supreme court backlog continued to grow, reaching hundreds of cases. Sometimes it took four or five years to get an ruling. The supreme court justices were pushing hard to get the state legislature to create an appellate court to help shoulder the load. “Justice delayed is justice denied” was their rallying motive.
But money was short and an entire new court was expensive. It took years to get the state legislature on board. The first attempt designated ten judges but the state legislature would only fund three.
One panelist told the story of how state legislator Charlie Capps from Bolivar County said, “You can create as many judges as you want, but the state legislature is only going to fund five.”
Two of the panelists, King and Mills, were in the state house of representatives at the time and were part of the negotiating process. One panelist noted that the final negotiation was done in a small room and every single one of the representatives was smoking a cigar. (That got big laughs from the audience.)
But even after the funding legislation passed there was another hurdle. Kirk Fordice, the first Republican governor in Mississippi since Reconstruction had just gotten elected on a platform that he would not create any new agencies or programs.
Everyone feared Fordice would veto the bill, years in the making.
Instead, Fordice listened to the arguments of the court advocates and signed the bill, creating Mississippi’s first ever state appellate court.
The first appellate court building was a dump, the panelist noted, with mold and mildew, dysfunctional bathrooms and an AC system that didn’t work very well.
Each of the nine justices had a desk, a pen and a notepad. They shared one clerk. They had to write their own opinions and were given a deadline of 270 days per case. They began attacking a huge backlog years in the making.
Throughout the presentation, various judges would raise their hands and contribute to the storytelling. It was one funny story after the next, stories about life and its twists and turns, all followed by happy laughter.
Former appellate Judge Oliver Diaz told the story of his first election to the court in 1994. As it turns out, his wife Jennifer went into labor at the precise time the critical election results were rolling in. “It’s time,” she told him.
Diaz loaded her up in the car and rushed to the hospital. As Jennifer’s labor pangs subsided, he just happened to be driving by a voting precinct. Not being able to resist, and with Jennifer’s permission, he stopped at the precinct to see if he had won.
He found the head of the voting precinct and explained his predicament and asked her if she could give him the results. Instead, she whacked him several times with her heavy purse, demanding that Diaz get in the car immediately and get his wife to the hospital, which he did. As it turns out, the delivery was successful and Diaz won the judgeship.
It really made me realize that people are people, even judges. You think of judges as the sternest of just about any profession. No doubt, on the bench, judges are expected to act in a certain manner to preserve the integrity of the office. But once the robe comes off, judges are just ordinary Mississippi folk, no different than you and me. (Come to think of it, my grandpa was a Gulfport municipal judge.)
One great joy and honor as a newspaper publisher for 35 years has been to watch these judges ascend to the top echelon and even to get to interview them over the years as a journalist.
Other than being a U. S. Supreme Court justice, being a federal appellate judge is the highest judgeship in the nation. There are about 275 appellate judges in the nation so it’s roughly equivalent to being a U. S. Senator.
Mississippi is in the fifth circuit and the Northside is well represented on that court with a remarkable five federal fifth circuit appellate judges: Southwick, Corey Wilson, Grady Jolly, James Graves and Rhesa Barksdale, several of whom were at the 30th anniversary of the state court.
