Election Revisited

In addition to the state judicial elections what may be next most important regarding the election for readers of this blog are presidential appointments. The Clarion Ledger printed a story this morning that has a good recap of some of the impact a President Obama will have on appointments in Mississippi regarding federal judges and federal district attorneys.

the election post script

After giving it a week to soak in I wanted to reflect on the Mississippi elections of last week. The winners were:

Sen: Thad Cochran
Sen: Roger Wicker
HR: Travis Childers
HR: Bennie Thompson
HR: Gregg Harper
HR: Gene Taylor
and John McCain carried MS with 56% of the vote

None of these can really be said to be upsets with perhaps the width of the Wicker victory over Musgrove by 10% and it was slightly surprising the ease at which Childers defeated Davis considering how close the special election was less than a year before.

What was surprising in the election was the races for the Mississippi Supreme Court as 3 of the 4 challengers were successful in their bids to the State's highest judicial offices.

Justice Ann Lamar successfully held her seat as Chief Justice Jim Smith lost to Jim Kitchens, Justice Chuck Easley was defeated by Court of Appeals Judge David Chandler, and Justice Oliver Diaz was defeated by Chancellor Bubba Pierce. While this may not cause seismic shifts on the court (Pierce is probably more conservative than Diaz and Kitchens is less conservative than Smith while Chandler and Easley often rule in civil cases similarly) this could be an interesting new court as 1/3 of the highest court in Mississippi is infused with new blood.

Changes in Chancery Court

The MS Supreme Court is currently seeking comment, until November 10, 2008, on a change to Rules 8.05 of the Uniform Chancery Rules.This change would effect the ability to redact certain items on the written statement of income or to have the items not redacted but the statement placed under seal.

This seems like a pretty mundane move to protect people's privacy while still obtaining what is legally needed. Additionally, I think this is how things are done anyway and they are just now putting it officially in the rules.

Alpha

This blog is an outgrowth of the Mississippi Law blog in which I used to participate in with a couple other friends and lawyers. Their interest seemed to dwindle in the blog (as did mine at some point) but I believe their is a need for this information and I wanted to start my own singular blog as a measure of blogging manifest destiny. I will bring my posts from that site over here and pick up with my future blogging on this site only. I hope this will be a enjoyable and informative place for Mississippi legal news.

The Bailout Vote

As many of you may know by this point 3 of the 4 Representatives from Mississippi voted against the bailout yesterday. Of comments I have seen Rep. Childers from D-1 stated: "Hard-working families are struggling in the face of job losses and home foreclosures resulting from overall economic instability. They are justifiably angry about a bailout that would require them to dig deeper into their pockets to rescue Wall Street from it's own recklessness."

"Earlier this year, I voted against a budget that would raise the federal debt to an unprecedented level. Today, I was again compelled to vote my conscience against a massive debt increase."

The quote punctuation is a little iffy in the original from WJTV but it sounds like a quote to me.

Additionally, Gene Taylor from D-4 stated: "If there was a button that said 'Hell, no,' I'd push it," said Taylor. "I hate to use a cliché, but this falls into the category of throwing money at a problem and hope it works." according to the Sun-Herald.

Orders now available online for the MS Supreme Court and Court of Appeals

A note shared with the MS Bar through e-Newsletter I thought I would share:

Supreme Court and Court of Appeals Orders Are On Internet

Orders of the Mississippi Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals filed on or after Sept. 25, 2008, can be viewed via the Internet. Access to copies of court orders is available from the General Docket page on the Court's web site. Go to http://www.mssc.state.ms.us/appellate_courts/generaldocket.html.

Cases are searchable by cause number, party name or attorney name. Point-and-click access to court orders will not be available directly from the weekly hand down lists of the Supreme Court and Court of Appeals. Gaining access to the full text of orders will require one to pull up the docket sheet for the individual case from the General Docket, then click on the link for the order. Orders will be available via the Internet on the day after they are filed. The web site is updated each evening. Appellate court orders filed from Sept. 25, 2008, forward, will be available as digital images. The Court does not plan to link to orders entered before that date.

Wicker v. Musgrove

In what appears to be a fairly close election between Roger Wicker (R) and Ronnie Musgrove (D) the CL reports the Wicker has more than doubled Musgrove's fundraising.