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The post Marshall Ramsey: Cash is King appeared first on Mississippi Today.

A Hinds County judge on Monday denied a preliminary injunction to block House Bill 1020 from becoming law. 

Chancery Judge Dewayne Thomas issued an order and memorandum explaining findings of fact and conclusions of law in response to a request by three plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging the appointment of temporary special judges in the Hinds County Circuit Court under HB 1020. 

“As a lifelong resident of Hinds County and a faithful voter in local elections, this Chancellor is keenly aware of the Plaintiff’s expressed feelings regarding the appointment of special circuit judges and the creation of a CCID court,” he wrote in his memorandum. “However, disappointment and frustration with the legislative process does not create a judicial right to relief.”

HB 1020, which is set to go into effect July 1,creates a separate police force and court system within Jackson and directs white state officials to appoint judges instead of having them elected by residents of the majority-Black city. Residents have raised concerns and Jackson lawmakers have said they were not part of crafting the legislation. 

Thomas ruled that the plaintiffs did not provide enough evidence that the appointment of temporary judges within HB 1020 and establishment of the Capitol Complex Improvement District court are unconstitutional “beyond a reasonable doubt,” according to his memorandum. 

He also didn’t find that the plaintiffs proved that an injunction is needed to prevent irreparable harm, according to the memorandum, saying that the challenged provisions of HB 1020 are not unconstitutional in nature and, therefore, can’t create any constitutional rights violations. 

Thomas also found that the plaintiffs didn’t give enough evidence that they would suffer harm without an injunction and that injunctive relief is consistent with public interest, according to the memorandum. 

To approve a preliminary injunction, the plaintiffs must show evidence of all four factors. 

The ruling came days after he heard arguments about the constitutionality of the bill. 

In the order, Thomas said the lawsuit is now fully ripe for appellate review. 

The plaintiffs are represented by the ACLU of Mississippi, the Mississippi Center for Justice, the MacArthur Justice Center and the Legal Defense and Educational Fund. In a Monday afternoon statement, the plaintiffs said they plan to appeal the dismissal of HB 1020 to the Mississippi Supreme Court.

HB 1020 has also been challenged in a lawsuit in federal court. 

On Friday, Judge Henry Wingate issued a temporary restraining order in that lawsuit to prevent the Mississippi Supreme Court Justice from appointing judges under the law. A hearing is scheduled for May 22, and, similarly, the plaintiffs are asking the judge for a preliminary injunction. 

That lawsuit argues that HB 1020 violates the U.S. Constitution for race discrimination by creating a “separate and unequal policing structure and criminal justice system by which no other residents of the state are subjected.”

The post Judge won’t block law creating separate court district in Jackson appeared first on Mississippi Today.

MAY 15, 1970

Mississippi law enforcement officers opened fire on the Jackson State University campus, killing two Black students, Phillip Lafayette Gibbs and James Earl Green. 

Police insisted the students fired first, but no evidence was found to confirm this. The killings took place 11 days after the slayings of four students at Kent State University in Ohio. 

Author Margaret Walker Alexander, a JSU professor, wrote in her journal, “Thursday night all hell broke loose. The Jackson city white police and a special unit of Highway Patrolmen (Ku Klux Klan in uniform) went out to the Jackson State campus and shot without warning into the west wing of the women’s dormitory breaking all the front windows — killing two students and wounding eleven others — four critically — cutting the telephone wires — shooting into the building where all the wounded girls were shot — splattering the place with pools of blood and leaving the bullet holes to prove where the ricocheted bullets of great magnitude had torn the walls.” 

A historical marker memorializes the tragedy.

The post On this day in 1970 appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Mississippi Today’s Adam Ganucheau, Geoff Pender and new political reporter Taylor Vance discuss the early days of the 2023 governor’s race. They also break down a key campaign finance reporting period that will set the tone for how campaigns try to reach voters.

The post Podcast: On the ground with Tate Reeves and Brandon Presley appeared first on Mississippi Today.

May is Mental Health Awareness Month and in this episode of Mississippi Stories, Mississippi Today Editor-at-Large Marshall Ramsey sits down with psychiatrist Dr. Katherine Pannel. Dr. Pannel is Medical Director of Right Track Medical Group.

A native of Inverness, Mississippi, she has been a practicing psychiatrist in North Mississippi since 2010. She is certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. She’s also a passionate advocate who helped push the passage of a new life-saving law legalizing Fentanyl test trips.

The post Mississippi Stories: Katherine Pannel, DO appeared first on Mississippi Today.

MAY 13, 1862

During the Civil War, Robert Smalls and other Black Americans who were enslaved commandeered an armed Confederate ship in Charleston. Wearing a straw hat to cover his face, Smalls disguised himself as a Confederate captain. His wife, Hannah, and members of other families joined them. 

Smalls sailed safely through Confederate territory by using hand signals contained in the captain’s code book, and when he and the 17 Black passengers landed in Union territory, they went from slavery to freedom. He became a hero in the North, helped convince Union leaders to permit Black soldiers to fight and became part of the war effort. 

After the war ended, he returned to his native Beaufort, South Carolina, where he bought his former slaveholder’s home (and allowed his widow to live there until her death). He served five terms in Congress, one of more than a dozen Black Americans to serve during Reconstruction. He also authored legislation that enabled South Carolina to have one of the nation’s first free and compulsory public school systems and bought a building to use as a school for Black children. 

After Reconstruction ended, however, white lawmakers passed laws to disenfranchise Black voters. 

“My race needs no special defense for the past history of them and this country,” he said. “All they need is an equal chance in the battle of life.” 

He survived slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction and the beginnings of Jim Crow. He died in 1915, the same year Hollywood’s racist epic film, “Birth of a Nation”, was released. 

A century later, his hometown of Beaufort opened the Reconstruction Era National Monument, which features a bust of Smalls — the only known statue in the South of any of the pioneering congressmen of Reconstruction. In 2004, the U.S. named a ship after Smalls. It was the first Army ship named after a Black American. A highway into Beaufort now bears his name.

The post On this day in 1862 appeared first on Mississippi Today.

A federal judge temporarily blocked the controversial House Bill 1020 from becoming law Friday. 

U.S. District Court Judge Henry Wingate granted the motion in a lawsuit brought by the NAACP, which would stop Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Michael Randolph from appointing four temporary special judges to the Hinds County Circuit Court, according to court documents. 

The NAACP had asked Wingate to block the chief justice from appointing judges under the law while HB 1020 is being challenged in court. This is the second time the NAACP has asked for a temporary restraining order on the law passed during the 2023 legislative session, according to court records. 

“The urgency of this renewed motion is acute – Defendant Randolph could at any moment make the appointments that violate Plaintiffs’ rights, and his counsel was unable to give any assurances that he would not do so,” attorneys for the NAACP wrote Thursday. 

The temporary restraining order will be in place until a May 22 hearing at the federal courthouse in Jackson. The law is scheduled to go into effect July 1.

HB 1020 has faced opposition from Jackson and Hinds County residents and lawmakers since it was filed. They have voiced concerns that the law would give power to white state officials to appoint judges and prosecutors, rather than having them elected by residents of the majority-Black city. The law would also expand the state Capitol Police into Jackson, which has its own police department. 

Gov. Tate Reeves signed HB 1020 on April 21, and within days the NAACP’s lawsuit and another lawsuit brought by the Mississippi Center for Justice, the ACLU of Mississippi, the McArthur Justice Center and the Legal Defense Educational Fund were filed.

Wingate’s order comes a day after Hinds County Chancery Judge Dewayne Thomas held a hearing on the lawsuit filed in state court challenging HB 1020. Last week, Thomas issued a temporary restraining order stopping the enactment of the law, and is expected next week to decide whether to move forward with an injunction. 

Attorneys for the NAACP cited developments in the state lawsuit as a reason to ask for a temporary restraining order blocking Randolph from appointing temporary judges, according to its Thursday court filing. 

The state lawsuit argues that the appointment of temporary judges by the chief justice violates the state constitution and Hinds County residents’ right to vote for their judges. The suit also argues that some tax money will be diverted from Jackson and placed in a fund supporting the Capitol Complex Improvement District projects. 

Randolph was previously a defendant in the state lawsuit, but on Thursday Thomas dismissed him and Hinds County Circuit Clerk Zack Wallace. 

Thomas also allowed the plaintiffs to add two new defendants: Attorney General Lynn Fitch and Gov. Reeves.

The post Another stay blocks law to create separate court in Jackson appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Republican Gov. Tate Reeves boasts significantly more campaign dollars on hand than Brandon Presley, his Democratic opponent, providing the incumbent governor a substantial financial cushion over his top competitor.

Reeves, according to his campaign finance report, raised over $1.7 million during the first four months of this year, bringing his total amount of cash on hand to more than $9 million from his Tate for Governor account and his legacy J. Tate Reeves account.

Presley raised around $1.4 million this quarter, totaling $1.6 million that he has in cash on hand.

While Reeves has far outpaced Presley with expendable cash, the two candidates vying for the Governor’s Mansion raised close to the same amount of money this quarter.

Campaign contributions often provide a snapshot into how aggressive a race will become, give voters an idea of which groups are backing a particular candidate and show what candidates are spending their money on.

The governor’s largest campaign contributor was $50,000 from the Mississippi Association of Realtors PAC. Other sizable donations include $35,000 from the mega lobbying group the Clay Firm, $40,000 from former state lawmaker Johnny Morgan and $25,000 from Gulfport Memorial Hospital CEO Kent Nicaud. 

Presley’s largest campaign donor was a $250,000 check from the Mississippi Hospital Association. Other notable contributions include $50,000 from former Netscape CEO Jim Barksdale, $25,000 from former Secretary of State Dick Molpus and $45,000 from the Mississippi Sierra Club PAC.

William Waller, the son of former Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Bill Waller Jr. who challenged Reeves in the 2019 Republican primary, also donated $500 to Presley.

Reeves, as the incumbent and a longtime statewide official, has far more name recognition and a larger base of supporters and has long attracted high-dollar donors. Presley, on the other hand, has been running more of a grassroots-style campaign focused on connecting with voters directly.

Ultimately, the campaign finance reports show that both candidates have raised serious amounts of money since January and are likely to run competitive campaigns in the coming months. 

Presley will likely use his cash to generate name ID and introduce himself to voters in parts of the state that he hasn’t represented as a utilities regulator from north Mississippi. Reeves, on the other hand, will almost certainly use his largesse to and generate negative ads about Presley and boast accomplishments of his first term as governor.

Candidates must submit their next campaign finance report on July 10. 

Editor’s Note: Jim Barksdale and Dick Molpus are donors of Mississippi Today. Barksdale served as a founding member of the Mississippi Today board of directors. A list of Mississippi Today donors can be found here, and Mississippi Today’s board of directors can be found here.

The post Reeves far outpaces Presley in total campaign cash, but recent fundraising is competitive appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The National Institutes of Health is awarding the University of Mississippi Medical Center about $2 million to study how to improve health outcomes for newborns. 

UMMC will work with 14 other health centers across the country for the next seven years as part of the Neonatal Research Network. The health systems, which include Duke University, Emory University and Stanford University, will collaborate to conduct studies and trials on infants.

“UMMC has received international recognition by joining this group of other reputed academic centers across the US,” said Dr. Abhay Bhatt, professor of pediatrics and director of research in UMMC’s Division of Neonatology and the study’s principal investigator, in a press release sent Thursday. 

“Our faculty and trainees will get the opportunity to collaborate with their counterparts in other institutions, and our scientists, in collaboration with our newborn faculty, will get the opportunity to develop funded translational research studies involving newborns.”

The network, funded by the NIH’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, was formed in 1986 to properly evaluate newborn care, especially those admitted to neonatal intensive care units upon birth. The network studies infant mortality, preterm birth rate and low birthweight rates — all areas in which Mississippi ranks the lowest in the country. 

Connecting multiple clinic centers in the network has allowed for larger sample sizes to be collected and quick testing that wouldn’t be possible on an individualized basis. 

UMMC’s addition to the network is a “monumental achievement,” said Dr. Courtney Walker, assistant professor of psychiatry and Mississippi’s representation in the network. 

“We have the highest preterm birth rate in the country, and being a part of the NRN gives infants and their families the opportunity to be a part of cutting-edge treatment and management strategies that they may not have access to otherwise,” she said. “Given that a lot of our babies are born premature in Mississippi, it is critical to study these new techniques here so that we can help determine whether or not they would benefit our children.”

Since its inception, the network has published nearly 500 articles to guide clinical practice as it relates to newborns. 

As part of the network, UMMC will participate in some ongoing observational studies about premature babies and morbidity and mortality rates in low-birth weight infants, including a study about the effectiveness of treating premature babies with 15 minutes of light therapy per hour instead of continuous light therapy to control bilirubin levels, which at high levels causes jaundice. 

UMMC is home to the state’s only Level IV neonatal intensive care unit. 

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