Mississippi’s Southwick on three-judge panel ruling on the law, not partisan politics

Columnist Sid Salter says the truth that Decide Leslie Southwick follows the regulation no matter partisan political impression ought to be of no actual shock to Mississippians.

Writing about one other case earlier this yr, readers will bear in mind encountering the title of fifth U.S. Circuit Courtroom of Appeals Decide James C. Ho of Texas. Ho filed a dissent from a majority ruling on the enchantment of a 2014 Mississippi election scandal that resulted in a Madison County lawyer taking his personal life – arguing that the dispute was a First Modification matter. 

Ho, nominated to the federal bench by former President Donald Trump in 2017, was included on the brief checklist of Supreme Courtroom nominees in 2020 when Trump named present Supreme Courtroom Justice Amy Coney Barrett to the nation’s highest courtroom.  

Ho’s associates and supporters tout his controversial rulings and writings as mental engagement with related concepts. Opponents accuse Ho of in search of to keep up a powerful place on a brief checklist of potential Supreme Courtroom nominees ought to Trump be re-elected to the White Home in 2024. 

The most recent case that thrust Decide Ho into the headlines is one involving Louisiana’s congressional districts and what critics say is an apparent ploy to maintain Louisiana Republicans in energy. The long-running authorized problem by voting rights plaintiffs alleges that Louisiana’s congressional districts had been drawn as a racist gerrymander leading to just one majority-Black district. 

In 2022, a federal trial courtroom dominated in favor of the voting rights plaintiffs within the case referred to as Robinson v. Ardoin and held that “the suitable treatment on this context is a remedial congressional redistricting plan that features a further majority-Black congressional district.” A second majority-Black congressional district would virtually definitely elect a Democrat to workplace. 

Earlier than the trial courtroom’s order took impact, the Supreme Courtroom intervened within the order’s enforcement till the excessive courtroom dominated in an analogous case on related points in Alabama within the Allen v. Milligan case – one other case alleging racial gerrymandering in congressional districting. 

In June, the Supreme Courtroom dominated the Alabama congressional districting maps invalid and ordered a brand new map drawn to create a second majority Black district – and lifted the prior maintain on the Robinson v. Ardoin case in Louisiana. The Louisiana trial choose set a brand new trial date in that case for Oct. 3.  

Inexplicably, Decide Ho and Decide Edith Jones issued an order to the trial courtroom to cancel the scheduled Oct. 3 listening to in a delaying motion that relied on a writ of mandamus – which many authorized students questioned as not remotely relevant within the Robinson case. Nevertheless, critics believed Ho and Jones sought to delay the method lengthy sufficient for Louisiana’s current maps for use for the 2024 elections. 

The perceived try by Ho and Jones to delay the case was seen as significantly weird given the truth that a special three-judge panel from their similar fifth U.S. Circuit Courtroom of Appeals was already scheduled to evaluation the case to find out if the trial courtroom accurately determined the matter. 

That three-judge panel included Decide Carolyn King of Texas, Decide Jennifer Elrod of Texas, and Decide Leslie Southwick of Mississippi dominated precisely that. Authorized analysts nonetheless see paths for the Robinson case to be delayed by Louisiana state officers to offer the Louisiana Legislature enough time to attract new congressional traces that aren’t in battle with racial gerrymandering legal guidelines. 

The truth that Southwick, nominated to the courtroom by former President George W. Bush, voted to comply with the regulation no matter partisan political impression ought to be of no actual shock to Mississippians. Southwick actually walked throughout Mississippi throughout a state judicial marketing campaign constructed on the notion of honest and trustworthy enforcement of the regulation. 

However the Fifth Circuit is now America’s most conservative courtroom and Trump appointed six of the present judges out of 17 energetic judges and 9 senior standing judges. With Trump nonetheless main Republican presidential main opinion polls heading into the 2024 election cycle, the “Trumpiest Courtroom in America” will proceed to attract consideration from Republicans and Democrats alike.