JACKSON, Miss.—Mississippi’s youth court system will undergo significant changes, eliminating referees, opening proceedings to the public, reforming confidentiality provisions and gaining additional funding for detention centers and youth diversion programs. The Mississippi Legislature approved the changes through Senate Bill 2001 during a special legislative session on July 15 and 16.
Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves, who signed the bill into law on Friday afternoon, said it will allow the State to “help youths who are able to be helped” and hold “those who cannot be helped accountable” for violent crime.
The House met in the Old Mississippi Capitol while renovations are ongoing in the House chamber at the current Mississippi Capitol Building; the Senate met in the current Capitol.
The timing of this special session comes after the July 1 expiration of a law that allowed the Mississippi Department of Child Protective Services, court officials, families, medical providers and lawyers to access confidential information about the cases in which they are involved.
U.S. District Court Judge Henry Wingate issued an order extending this access, which expired on July 15, triggering the need for a special session, Gov. Tate Reeves told reporters.
“I think that everyone involved is very cognizant and aware that while these judicial interactions—whether right or wrong, legal or not, allowable under the current statute or not—the place that these things need to be fixed is in the Mississippi Legislature,” Reeves said at a press conference a few hours before the Mississippi Legislature’s special session began on Wednesday.
Legislature Revises Youth Court Confidentiality Provisions
Prior youth court provisions allowed limited access to youth court proceedings, typically only allowing court personnel and certain designees access to records. When the confidentiality provision under Mississippi Code Section 43-21-261 expired on June 30, the Mississippi Department of Child Protective Services filed an emergency motion with the Mississippi Supreme Court on July 1 to allow CPS to inform designated agencies and professionals about certain confidential records involving children.
The state’s high court issued a temporary order on July 2 preventing lower courts from establishing their own orders regarding confidentiality, while allowing CPS to operate as usual. The order expires on July 24, fewer than 10 days after the special session began.
Republican leaders in the Senate introduced Senate Bill 2001 to fix the confidentiality portion by requiring each court to determine for each case if the public and reporters can be in courtrooms and what access they have to proceedings.
“Why are we having an open-door policy in youth courts?” Rep. Jeffrey Harness, D-Fayette, said on the House floor of the old Capitol on Thursday.
“Open door as far as?” House Judiciary B Committee Chairman Rep. Kevin Horan, R-Grenada, replied.
“Allowing the public,” Harness started.
“Well, gentleman, the transparency part is a case-by-case basis. The judge can make the decision, then close it,” Horan responded. “There’s a lot of hearings in youth court that have no minors involved in it at all. If you’re accused of abusing a child and it goes to a hearing and it’s determined that you haven’t done anything wrong, I would think that that individual whose character and reputation has been impugned that that individual would like to have access to say, ‘Hey, look, I told you I hadn’t done anything wrong.’”
Harness said the Legislature should not allow judges to extend discretion and allow public disclosure of youth court cases because they could do so for malicious reasons.
Rep. John Hines, D-Greenville, presented an amendment to prevent judges from being able to release details of a case to the public. Horan told the House to vote no because safeguards are in place to prevent judges from deviously releasing records. The amendment failed. Democratic Reps. Zakiya Summers, Robert Johnson and Jeffrey Harness also introduced amendments that ultimately failed to receive a majority vote.
Sen. Juan Barnett, D-Heidelburg, introduced an amendment on Wednesday that would have required that no less than one-third of beds available at Oakley Youth Detention Facility and any other youth detention facility be dedicated to providing mental health services and housing for those who need it.
“I’m just going to ask the members of this committee, you know, to vote how you feel,” Barnett said on the Senate floor at the new Capitol on Wednesday. “But I’ve had a conversation there with the appropriations chairman, and he assured me also that we’ll be working on some language tomorrow in appropriations to address the mental health issues as well.”
While Sen. Brice Wiggins, R-Pascagoula, said he looked upon the amendment positively, he favored speed over detail.
“You had lawsuits filed, and in the meantime, there’s kids who … could be in the situation of being harmed, of being stuck in the system, and it took court orders to pause all that so that we could do our job,” Wiggins said on the Senate floor on Wednesday. “… I would ask you to vote down the amendment, and so that we can get to sending this to the House, and let the House do their job, so that we can move forward and put all of that behind us.”
Barnett’s amendment failed. Senators passed five of the 10 amendments that they introduced on Tuesday. Most of the five amendments passed involved either slight clarifications or short wording changes.
Chancellors to Replace Youth Court Referees
Only 24 of Mississippi’s 82 counties have a county court judge responsible for youth court proceedings. The other 58 counties do not have a county court nor a full-time judge to preside over youth court and instead use part-time referees through their chancery court to attend to cases involving children. Referees “can do anything chancellors can do,” Horan said.
S.B. 2001 also includes a provision that eliminates regular or special youth court referees and replaces them with nine full-time chancery court judges in the nine chancery court districts that have populations of less than 50,000 people—chancery court districts 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 15 and 18. Gov. Tate Reeves will appoint these judges as soon as possible, but they will have to run in future elections.
Boards of supervisors of counties with populations of less than 50,000 people will have the option to choose whether or not to adopt the new youth court system the Legislature enacted under S.B. 2001. If a county chooses to opt out, the county court supervisor must notify the Administrative Office of Courts that they wish to maintain current youth court provisions using the county’s own funding in county court by 2028. AOC would then tell the governor, lieutenant governor and House speaker about the court’s decision. The State would only pay for salary supplements for the counties that opt out of the new system, and the counties would have to pay for the rest of the expenses, the bill says.
“Could this adversely affect local communities, counties if they decide not to opt into this system?” Rep. John Hines said on the House floor of the old Capitol on Thursday. “Will this cause a tax increase on local communities?”
“I can’t answer whether or not it’s going to cause a tax increase. I think it will be—you’re talking about the county courts under the 50,000?” Horan said, prompting Hines to respond by saying “yes.”
“Yes, they would have to pick up the tab for those youth courts if they move forward with the youth court system in place as it is right now,” Horan said. “Yes, it will cost those counties.”
Another provision of S.B. 2001 requires youth court judges who deliver oral orders to issue the order in writing within 48 hours, excluding weekends and state holidays. If the judge fails to submit a written order within the timeframe, the order will be “null and void,” the bill says.
“I understand the urgency in making sure that we get these orders out quickly … but I can’t imagine ruling it null and void if they don’t get it in 48 hours,” Johnson said, giving examples of how chancellors in his district are overwhelmed with cases and may not be able to turn in a written order within the timeframe in the legislation
Judges currently appoint intake officers, but S.B. 2001 says AOC would now make those appointments. The House and Senate passed S.B. 2001 and Gov. Tate Reeves signed it into law on Friday afternoon.
In a social media post, Reeves said he was “proud of our Republican legislators” for rejecting what he called “Democrats’ best attempts to maintain the fragmented status quo, reduce transparency, and allow violent youths to continue wreaking havoc on their communities.”
“Our state will maintain law and order, while also preserving Mississippians’ right to due process,” he wrote on Thursday. “And our state will help youths who are able to be helped, while also holding those who cannot be helped accountable.”
Legislature Allocates Funding for Youth Detention Centers
Funding for two new detention centers in north and south Mississippi is on the way to the Mississippi Department of Public Safety, as the Mississippi Legislature allocated $10 million in Capital Expense funds in House Bill 2 for the agency to build or renovate two facilities during the Legislature’s special session.
Mississippi House Appropriations A Committee Vice Chairman Rep. Angela Cockerham, I-Magnolia, said she does not know where the two new facilities will be nor if they will be entirely new buildings or renovations of existing buildings, because DPS will need to scout locations.
“DPS is going to be administering and monitoring and working to find out where these locations are going to be,” she said during a committee meeting on Thursday. “But as of right now, we don’t have a determination of where these facilities will be located.”
During the Mississippi House’s debate of H.B. 2, Mississippi House Minority Leader Rep. Robert Johnson, D-Natchez, offered an amendment to stop the money from going to the new detention facilities unless Gov. Tate Reeves accepted federal funding to feed children during the summer.
A federal program gives electronic benefit transfer (EBT) cards with three $40 monthly payments to low-income families to help with food costs during the summer when schools are closed. Reeves has declined the funding each year, resulting in Mississippi missing out on a total of $114 million in federal funding.
“We’re not expanding the locking up of kids until we start feeding them,” the minority leader said on the House floor of the old Capitol on Thursday.
Rep. Earle Banks, D-Jackson, said some children may commit misdemeanors and felonies by stealing food so they are able to eat, and they would go to jail or prison as a result. Johnson agreed and said feeding kids during the summer could help reduce crime rates.
H.B. 2 also allocates $12 million to the Department of Human Services to upgrade and add more beds to the Oakley Youth Development Center. House Bill 1 allocates $1.5 million to DHS for a statewide youth diversion program.
The House and Senate passed H.B. 1 and H.B. 2 with majority approval, and the legislation heads to Gov. Tate Reeves for his consideration.
Sen. Juan Barnett, D-Heidelberg, repeatedly expressed concerns that the bill did not do enough to address youth mental health issues.
Sen. Sollie Norwood, D-Jackson, called for checks and balances to be implemented within the appropriations bills for the allocation of increased funding of child protective services to guarantee it is being used appropriately as well.
A ‘Selective Few’ Crafted Youth Court Legislation
Meanwhile, some Mississippi senators expressed concerns about the last-minute timing of the special session after Gov. Tate Reeves announced the call for the special session only 24 hours before the Legislature convened in Jackson.
“Should you pass this precise bill right here today—not knowing that it existed until 24 hours before we got here, being summoned down here in 24 hours, when at least 10 of our colleagues are not here because of the inexplicable short notice of this special session, a shorter notice of any special session I ever remember, except maybe something called during a session—to what end?” Sen. Hob Bryan, D-Amory, said while speaking on the Senate floor at the new Capitol on Wednesday.
Both the House and Senate had several members who were absent for the special session.
Democrats in both chambers noted that they were not included in the negotiation process ahead of the special session, alleging they knew very little about the legislation until the day the special session started.
The negotiations for the legislation ahead of the special session involved the Republican governor’s office, Republican House Speaker Jason White, Republican Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Sen. Briggs Hopson, R-Vicksburg, Senate Judiciary A Committee Chairman Sen. Brice Wiggins, R-Pascagoula and House Judiciary B Committee Chairman Rep. Kevin Horan, R-Grenada, Reeves said in a Tuesday social media post.
Republican Rep. Elliot Burch of Lucedale also expressed concerns about how quickly the process was moving, noting that only a “selective few” crafted the bills.
“But if by youth court reform you mean placing a 216-page rewrite of Mississippi law in front of me and these members, expecting everybody to understand it and know the consequences of it before they vote, then I have some concerns,” he said, referencing Senate Bill 2001, on the House floor of the old Capitol on Thursday.
Although the Senate passed S.B. 2001 on Wednesday evening, some senators continued questioning the basics of that bill and how appropriations might be used, even after voting on it and kept the discussion going minutes before voting on the funding legislation. Hopson spent most of the Thursday appropriations meeting clarifying the basics of the law to his peers who were not included in its drafting.
“I think this is all part (of) … the broader picture of having a good system of taking care of our youth here in Mississippi, and that includes everything from the welfare situation to the delinquency situation that we have with children,” he said during the meeting.
“Unfortunately, you know, we’ve got a lot of these kids right now … that are being detained at places that are not really proper—sometimes hotels, sometimes even out of state,” Hopson added. “We’re spending a lot of money on that. This (legislation) is to try to have the best system we can have in Mississippi.”
Passing Legislation, Creating History
The House’s convening in the old Capitol was the first time women voted on and presented legislation in the building. Rep. Angela Cockerham, I-Magnolia, was the first woman to introduce a bill at the well in the Old Capitol.
This was the first time the Legislature passed legislation inside the Old Capitol since 1903. Back then, the Legislature met every other year. The last bill it passed in the building during the last session there 123 years ago was Senate Bill 89, which reinforced antitrust laws against mills, and the final motion the Senate passed was to pay a person to add locks on legislators’ desks.
On Thursday evening, the House passed House Resolution 1 and House Resolution 2 to honor the lives of Reps. Price Wallace, R-Mendenhall, and William “Bo” Brown, D-Jackson, both of whom died in June. Speaker Jason White said the House will do more formal proclamations during the 2027 session so that Wallace’s and Brown’s families can celebrate the lives of their loved ones with the House.
The House’s Gulf Coast delegation made a motion to adjourn the special session in memory of Nolan Wells. Rep. Hank Zuber, R-Ocean Springs, said Wells had a beautiful smile, a funny sense of humor and was a role model to kids on the Gulf Coast.
Wells’ mother, Christine Wonsley, reported Wells, an 18-year-old resident of Ocean Springs, missing to authorities on July 4 after he traveled on a boat with friends to Horn Island, south of Jackson County. A park ranger found Wells’ body two days later on Horn Island. Authorities have not concluded whether any foul play led to Wells’ death.
“One of the things right now we want to honor young man Nolan about and the people of the State of Mississippi, is we are Mississippians. All of us are Mississippians,” Rep. Jeffrey Hulum, D-Gulfport, said on the House floor at the old Capitol. “We are a state and a nation built on laws, doing what’s right at all times, so we ask you to pray, continue to pray for his family. Pray for him, pray for all the state. Continue to help us come together in this tremendous time of chaos and confusion, and let the state of Mississippi stand up and show our brotherly and neighborly love.”
Videos of Mississippi House and Senate floor and committee discussions are available on the Mississippi Legislature’s YouTube channel.
A full-length video of Gov. Tate Reeves’ July 15 press conference is available here.
Read more of the Mississippi Free Press’ coverage of the Mississippi Legislature here.
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