In a powerful show of support, the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division filed a motion to intervene to support Plaintiffs challenging a recent state take-over of the criminal justice system in Jackson, MS (Hinds County). Labeling the take over racially discriminatory, the DOJ alleges that the new laws, which create a special district in which judges and prosecutors would be appointed rather than elected, discriminate on the basis of race in violation of the U.S. Constitution by shifting authority over the county’s criminal justice system away from democratically-elected judges and prosecutors, who were elected by the Black voters of Jackson.

You can read the DOJ’s press release regarding its motion here:

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-challenges-racially-discriminatory-provisions-new-mississippi-law#:~:text=%E2%80%9COur%20complaint%20alleges%20that%20Mississippi,and%20appointed%20by%20state%20officials.