Mississippi House Rep. Jansen Owen, a Republican from Poplarville, has sponsored bills giving former nonviolent offenders the chance to expunge felony convictions. He has also tried to reform the statute of limitations for sexual-battery prosecutions. He is now running to be the next district attorney for the 15th Circuit Court District, which includes Marion, Pearl River, Lamar, and Walthall counties, in the 2027 election.
He vows to fight for “safer communities, stronger families, and a justice system that puts victims first and criminals behind bars” if voters elect him to serve as district attorney. There are 23 judicial districts in Mississippi, each with its own elected district attorney. District attorneys are responsible for prosecuting cases within their districts.
“Owen is a steadfast defender of the Constitution, a strong supporter of the Second Amendment, and a firm believer that government’s first responsibility is to protect innocent citizens from criminals. He has consistently worked to ensure repeat offenders and violent criminals are held fully accountable for their actions,” a May 28 press release from Owen’s law office says.
Current District Attorney Hal Kittrell has announced his retirement after almost two decades of serving as the district attorney for the 15th Circuit Court District.
“I want to thank Hal Kittrell for his 20 years of service as District Attorney. He has spent a career fighting to make sure that violent criminals are held accountable, and that victims get the justice that they deserve,” Owen said in the press release.
Voters first elected Owen to the House in 2019. He is the vice chairman of the House Judiciary B Committee, where he has advocated for reforming the statute of limitations law for sexual battery. He sponsored a 2025 bill to allow prosecutors to pursue sexual battery charges based on new evidence if a recent DNA test identifies a suspect in an older sexual-battery case so that the State would be able to charge the suspect with a crime no matter how many years have passed. The House passed the bill, but the Senate killed it in committee.
In 2021, the lawmaker proposed allowing nonviolent offenders to expunge two felonies from their record after 10 years and three after 15 years. The House passed the bill, but the Senate killed it in committee.
Owen said that passing the legislation would show that Mississippians have “a forgiving spirit.”
“This targets those people who went through a span of their life where they made a lot of wrong decisions, somebody in their 20s who got a drug conviction at 22, 24, 27 and now they’re 50 and they go to church and they want a job and they want their kids to not see that they have this mark on them,” he said on the House floor in February 2021.
As a member of the House Education Committee, Owen cosponsored the Republican members’ massive education package in 2026 to give taxpayer dollars to students attending private schools through school vouchers.
“Despite what some people say, you can be for parental freedom and for public education and their teachers every day of the week,” he told the Mississippi Free Press in February 2026 after the Senate Education Committee killed the bill.
Owen has proposed numerous unsuccessful bills to make it easier for students to transfer to public schools in districts they do not live in. Owen says that only families should be able to choose where their child attends school.
“No superintendent, no school board, no public school teacher gets to tell Jansen that Darby and Mabry can’t go to a school. I know what’s best for my child,” he said when speaking about House Bill 1435 on the House floor on Feb. 6, 2025. “Every parent in this room knows what’s best for their child and the people of Mississippi know what’s best for their children.”
State law currently allows a student to transfer to another district, but the transfer must first be approved by the school board of the district where the student lives and then by the receiving district.
Owen cosponsored the INSPIRE Act of 2024—an effort to overhaul Mississippi’s education funding formula—that Gov. Tate Reeves endorsed, but the Mississippi Senate killed it in committee.
Owen is the founder and managing attorney at Owen Law Firm, PLLC. He also serves as a judge advocate general officer in the Mississippi Army National Guard’s 168th Engineer Brigade in Vicksburg, Mississippi. Before he represented Mississippi House District 106, he served as chief deputy chancery clerk, deputy circuit clerk, and law clerk to the county court in Pearl River County.
