‘A circus’: Mississippi Supreme Court Justice decries efforts to keep him in lawsuit

By MICHAEL GOLDBERG
Associated Press/Report for America

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi Supreme Court Chief Justice Mike Randolph says efforts to attach him to a lawsuit challenging a new state law are a “circus” with “no legal precedent in U.S. history.” Randolph has been named a defendant in the lawsuit challenging House Bill 1020. The legislation was signed into law by Republican Gov. Tate Reeves in April. The new state law expands the state’s role in courts and policing in Jackson. Randolph says it is unprecedented for a state supreme court chief justice to be sued in a constitutional challenge to a state law. NAACP attorneys say “separate and unequal policing” will return to Mississippi’s majority-Black capital under parts of the new law.