Supreme Court of Mississippi

The Supreme Court of Mississippi is the highest court of the state of Mississippi and an appellate court. It was established in 1818 under the state's first constitution and was called the High Court of Errors and Appeals from 1832 to 1869. It sits in Jackson, in the Carroll Gartin Justice Building, which it moved into in 1973. Nine justices, elected in nonpartisan contests from three districts to eight-year terms, sit on it, and the most senior justice serves as chief justice. The state constitution gives it broad jurisdiction to review questions of law; it has original jurisdiction only over appeals from utility rate actions of the Public Service Commission and over investigations of judicial misconduct, and direct appellate jurisdiction over capital punishment, municipal annexation, bond issue, election dispute and judicial disciplinary cases. Its members work in divisions of three justices and sit together on split decisions and cases of wide public impact, and it may assign other appeals to the Mississippi Court of Appeals.