“There’s a judge in this city that may be appointed by a CCID court that will look at me and say, ‘Maybe you need a night in prison.’”ĭuring that same debate, Representative Trey Lamar, a Republican and the bill’s sponsor, shot back against critics of the measure, saying, “If I have to stand here and listen to being called a racist because I’m trying to do the right thing, we’re going to talk about the color that matters. I know you all can see that,” House Minority Leader Robert Johnson, a Democrat, said on the House floor in March. The racial implications of the bills became a flashpoint during debate of House Bill 1020, which creates a new court system within Jackson’s Capitol Complex Improvement District, a downtown area that includes the State Capitol and Jackson State University. “Under this new regime and unlike in any other jurisdiction in Mississippi, in certain areas of Jackson, a citizen can be arrested by a police department led by a State-appointed official, be charged by a State-appointed prosecutor, be tried before a State-appointed judge, and be sentenced to imprisonment in a State penitentiary regardless of the severity of the act,” the lawsuit reads. Proponents of the laws have insisted that they are needed to help reduce crime in Jackson, which has a higher murder rate than much of the nation, and assist the city’s police force. The other law, House Bill 1020, establishes a new court system overseeing Jackson’s downtown, with judges and prosecutors who are appointed, not elected. One of the laws, Senate Bill 2343, extends the jurisdiction of the Capitol Police from a compact district surrounding state government buildings to broader areas of the city, where tension already exists between Black residents and the Capitol Police over officers’ conduct. The city’s leaders are mostly Black and Democratic, and 80 percent of its 150,000 residents are Black.

Tate Reeves, also a Republican, establish state control of policing and the judicial system in much of Jackson, something not done in other cities in the state, according to the N.A.A.C.P. The laws, passed by the overwhelmingly white and Republican Legislature and signed on Friday by Gov. is suing state leaders over two new laws that it says create a “separate and unequal” structure involving the police and courts in the city. In another sign of the deep rift in Mississippi between white state lawmakers and Black residents of its capital, Jackson, the N.A.A.C.P.

Here Be Dragons by Bill Fawcett