Federal prosecutors filed a lawsuit Wednesday (July 12) against Mississippi, alleging that a new state law discriminates against residents of Hinds County, which includes the state’s majority-Black capital city of Jackson, by authorizing state officials to appoint local judges even though most judges are elected in Mississippi.

According to the lawsuit, the controversial law is racially discriminatory because it revokes the right of Black voters to elect judges and prosecutors of their choice.

“Mississippi state lawmakers have adopted a crude scheme that singles out and discriminates against Black residents in the City of Jackson and Hinds County,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division said in a statement.

“Our complaint alleges that Mississippi has violated the U.S. Constitution by creating a new, two-tiered system of justice – which erodes the authority of Black elected local officials and creates a new system to be led by judges and prosecutors hand-picked and appointed by state officials.

The lawsuit takes aim at portions of Mississippi House Bill 1020 (H.B. 1020), which GOP Gov. Tate Reeves signed into law in April. Under the measure passed by the predominantly white Republican-controlled state legislature, the law would create a new court system for part of Jackson under the leadership of a new state-appointed judge and new state-appointed prosecutors

It also mandates the appointment of four new special circuit judges by the chief justice of the Mississippi Supreme Court, currently conservative Judge Michael K. Randolph, to serve alongside those judges elected to the Hinds County Circuit Court.

According to federal prosecutors, this new arrangement has a discriminatory purpose in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.

“This thinly-veiled state takeover is intended to strip power, voice and resources away from Hinds County’s predominantly-Black electorate, singling out the majority Black Hinds County for adverse treatment imposed on no other voters in the State of Mississippi,” Clarke said.

The Associated Press reports that the DOJ’s complaint seeks to join a federal lawsuit the NAACP filed in April.

On April 21, the civil rights organization sued Mississippi over H.B. 1020 and Senate Bill 2343, which expands the state-controlled Capitol Police jurisdiction from around state buildings in Jackson to almost the entire city that is about 80 percent Black and majority Democrat.

"As our country continues to face the reality and consequences of our broken law enforcement and criminal justice systems, passing legislation to increase policing, install undemocratically appointed judges, and infringe on the constitutional right to protest is simultaneously irresponsible and dangerous,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson said in a statement announcing the lawsuit.

Reeves has said the laws are needed to stem violent crime and denied that they have any racist intent.

“Jackson is experiencing an unprecedented epidemic of crime. The capital city is approximately 6% of Mississippi’s population yet, in 2020, accounted for more than 50% of the homicides in our state. It set a record for homicides within the city that year. It did it again in 2021,” the governor tweeted April 21 when he enacted the bills.