Mississippi Supremes Call For Truce In Judge-Public Defender War

The Mississippi Supreme Court has held that a Hinds County judge did not have the authority to prohibit a public defender from practice before the court on grounds of alleged general lack of competence.

Rather, such a determination is the supreme court’s exclusive province through the bar discipline process

absent a finding through the bar complaint process that Kelly is incompetent to practice law, Judge Weill is without authority to deny Kelly the right to practice law before him, based on his belief that she generally is incompetent. 

Nor could the judge bar the attorney based on purported instances of sanctionable conduct

For our purposes today, we have observed in Judge Weill’s allegations several incidences that—had they been properly developed, and assuming all of Kelly’s due process rights had been properly protected—very well may have justified some level of sanction. But for the most part, these alleged incidences occurred with no hearing, no finding of contempt, and no issuance of any sanction. And while individual sanctions may have been within Judge Weill’s discretion in some of the incidences, we are not persuaded that Judge Weill’s allegations of inappropriate conduct justify the extreme sanction of excluding Kelly from representing indigent defendants in all future cases before him.

The public defender sought to recuse the judge in a number of pending matters

As to the matters before us today, we make no judgments on which party is more at fault, nor do we find a sufficient basis for ordering Judge Weill’s recusal in any pending or future case. In future cases in which the Hinds County Public Defender or a particular assistant public defender believes Judge Weill—or any circuit judge—should recuse from a particular case, he or she may file with that judge an appropriate motion to recuse, setting forth the particular facts and circumstances that suggest the circuit judge cannot preside impartially over the case.

And

We urge all the parties before us—Judge Weill as a member of the judiciary; Purvis-Harris as a member of the Bar and as the Hinds County Public Defender; and Kelly, as a member of the Bar—to carefully examine the issues and to consider ways to ameliorate the problems that exist, so the judiciary may achieve the orderly administration of justice, the public may have confidence in the judicial process, and so that when Purvis-Harris appoints Kelly to represent an indigent defendant before Judge Weill, the defendant, the victims, and their families will not be deprived of fairness or justice due to personal issues between the parties that are unrelated to the case.

Justice Kitchings notes ongoing disciplinary complaints that attorney and judge have filed against each other and would require the judge’s recusal

Today, a majority of the Mississippi Supreme Court tells a lawyer and a judge who have filed competing complaints against each other to return to the courtroom, together, and “make nice.” Given the level of animus between the judge and the lawyer, which is evident from the filings before us, the majority’s approach to the dysfunctionality that this tempestuous clash has produced may amount to little more than wishful thinking on this Court’s part. The majority may have ordered a noble experiment that will fail with the result that the present problems will return to us at some future date, worse, perhaps, than they are now.

Justice Chandler would assign the 55 cases in which the judge appointed private counsel back to the public defender and

I also take the position that all of the exhibits in this case should be removed from under seal (with the exception of the respective complaints against Kelly and Judge Weill). The citizens of Hinds County who are footing the bill for all of this behavior have no way of knowing the entirety of what has transpired. I see no evidence that unsealing the documents would create a possible danger to the parties or anyone else. While I appreciate the idea of not wanting to release additional fodder for a public spectacle, lack of transparency creates the danger of inaccurate public inference and speculation.

The Jackson Free Press reported on the controversy here and here. Additional coverage from Simple Justice. (Mike Frisch)