Mississippi Criminal and Family Law BlogShould I or could I represent myself on criminal charges in the state of Mississippi? To quote William Shakespeare, “To be or not to be [my own attorney]? That is the question”. Is it reasonable for me to be my own attorney? Once you have been charged with a crime, you’ve got to understand the court system and the court rules to make that determination.
The Mississippi Court system has two lower courts that hear criminal charges. Crimes are broken down into two broad categories. One of those is a misdemeanor offense and one is a felony offense. A misdemeanor offense is a more minor crime defined by our government as under six months in jail and under a $5,000 fine. Most misdemeanors in Mississippi have jail terms of up to one year in jail and up to a one-thousand dollar fine. Felonies by definition are more serious crimes that can result in prison sentences. In Mississippi there are two courts that hear misdemeanor offenses, which are the justice court and the municipal court.
Justice Courts
At this time, there are 82 Justice Courts in the state of Mississippi, one in each county. The Justice Court is convened and set up by the County Board of Supervisors of one of the eighty two (82) counties. The supervisors also appoint a Justice Court clerk. In addition, there are Justice Court judges who used to be called Justices of the Peace. But now Justice Court judges are elected in county elections. In the early days, justice courts were fee-based systems. That meant that the court and the judge’s salary was funded from the fees and funds of that court. That practice stopped decades ago and now you can understand why.
There are basically just under 200 Justice Court judges in the state of Mississippi. Justice Court judges have qualifications to run for office. They must be 21 years of age, live in the county, have a high school diploma or GED, and be elected Justice Court Judge. Justice Courts are limited in their jurisdiction. The jurisdiction is the power to hear a case. They’re limited to civil actions for money judgements of up to $3,500 and they can hear misdemeanor criminal cases with a penalty of up to a one-thousand dollar fine and one year in jail.
Municipal Courts
Municipal or city courts are also courts of limited jurisdiction. There are approximately 226 municipal courts with 227 judges. They enforce municipal ordinance violations and certain state statutes. Municipal courts also have the power to try state misdemeanor cases as criminal charges.
Other Mississippi Court Systems
If there is a conviction in justice or municipal court, Mississippi allows for what’s called a trial de novo. That means a brand new trial in the superior court as if nothing had happened in the court below. Superior courts in Mississippi are going to be county courts or circuit courts. County courts exist in counties that have more than 50,000 population based on the last population census, and at last count there were 22 county courts. If you’re convicted in the lower court, you can start all over again in the county court.
If there is no county court in the county of the arrest, then your case will be tried in a circuit court. Circuit courts handle civil actions over $200, and they have general criminal jurisdiction, meaning that they can be the original court to hear felonies or misdemeanors on appeal from the justice or municipal court. Recently, the Mississippi Judicial College published rules and regulations for Mississippi municipal courts, justice courts, circuit and county courts, and court rules and these number several hundred pages for each of these manuals. The city court and justice court have been referenced as courts where the rubber meets the road, meaning that if you added up all the criminal charges filed in the state of Mississippi against citizens, that there would be more criminal charges filed in city and justice courts than all the rest of the courts put together.
Both city and justice courts now have multiple hundred-page manuals of how that particular court works. Add to that the hundreds of pages published for evidentiary procedures and the hundreds of pages dealing with the procedures specific to the circuit and county courts, and this puts an individual in the position of having to read, understand, and use these literally thousands of pages that will bear on their outcome in trial.
Another issue with representing yourself is that the court is going to expect you to have some idea about what the case law is and how it’s been interpreted in the courts. Lawyers have literally thousands of pages of cases available in which our Supreme Court and other courts have ruled on specific criminal case law, and the courts will expect case citings interpreting the law to be used both in city and justice court.
The city and justice court further are what’s known as “courts of no record”, meaning that other courts superior to the city and justice court have court reporters whose job it is to faithfully reproduce testimony as given in court. There are no court reporters in municipal of justice courts, and it becomes the duty of the person on trial to record the testimony from the court in case you must appeal for a brand new trial in a superior court, or in case you need to memorialize the testimony that was derived from the trial at your cost.
Finding and Choosing a Lawyer
When a person is charged in city (municipal) or justice court, they can also apply to the court for indigency status. Indigency status means that you don’t have the financial ability to hire an attorney and an attorney can be appointed to you to defend your case. Unfortunately, these court appointed lawyers are inundated with cases and may not have the time that a private attorney would to develop a defense for you in court.
I can share with you that as a former police officer, police sergeant, and police lieutenant, I have been on both sides of the criminal justice process and have been in courts in every Mississippi county and most every Mississippi city. There are some similarities among courts, but there are some differences. And so one of those questions you may have is: if I go into this county that I was passing through and don’t know any lawyers, then where do I go? Well, there are many online ways to find lawyers. Chief among them is Avvo.com, Intaker.com, and other such platforms such as Justia and the Bar Association of Mississippi also has a referral list. It is difficult to understand a system when you can’t find a lawyer that is familiar with that court.
So in this analysis, clients are asking the question, “what do I do?”, and the answer is that you need to find the best attorney you can in that area of law and let them try your case. As a corollary to that, it’s always good to get more than one opinion, so you should seek out several lawyers to speak with. Once you have interviewed lawyers on the telephone, it’s always good to make an appointment to go meet with that particular person because hiring a lawyer is a very personal matter and you need to get the feeling that you and the lawyer connect on the important parts of your case.
Why You Should Choose to Hire Vic Carmody as Your Attorney
My goal is always to enable my client to put their best foot forward in court. I can also tell you, with over 54 years in the criminal justice process as a former police officer sergeant lieutenant and now as a criminal defense attorney, that people just don’t win their own criminal cases. So if the choice comes down to whether or not you can go into court and defend yourself, that choice should be secondary to finding an attorney that can defend you. You usually only have one opportunity to try your case. It is never a good idea to waste your time trying to be your own lawyer, and I just don’t see people going to court and winning their own cases without an attorney. On the other side of every case is a prosecutor in municipal court or justice court. Prosecutors have years of experience and thousands of prosecutions under their belt. Representing yourself is almost like taking a gun to a knife fight and you’re not going to do as well up against a prosecutor who does this for a living.
If you have been searching the Mississippi area for a qualified, experienced criminal defense attorney, look no further than Vic Carmody Jr., P.A. Over the years, we have helped numerous offenders pursue favorable outcomes. Although being accused of a crime is not a pleasant experience, there are many potential defense strategies that can be used to defend and reduce the charges against an offender. We understand the seriousness of these charges and will work tirelessly to help you achieve the best possible outcome for your case. Call us today at (601) 948-4444 to set up your consultation with an attorney.