JACKSON, Miss. (AP) - Mississippi lawmakers are approving 16 more prosecutors in circuit courts after they were prodded into action by Gov. Phil Bryant.
Lawmakers approved the assistant district attorneys and funding for the positions Wednesday after Bryant called a special session.
House and Senate negotiators couldn’t reach an agreement on a bill in the 2014 regular session that would have added more prosecutors and judges, as the two chambers argued over adding new judges and rearranging the boundaries of the circuit and chancery districts that cover the state’s 82 counties.
The new bill adds a new prosecutor in 14 circuits on Nov. 1. Two of those circuits, one covering Madison and Rankin counties and one covering Jackson, George and Greene counties, will get a second new prosecutor on July 1, 2015.
The remaining eight circuit districts will retain their current number of prosecutors.
Senate Judiciary A Committee Chairman Briggs Hopson, R-Vicksburg, said new assistant district attorneys were assigned based on need. Bryant echoed that position Wednesday at the Governor’s Mansion.
“This needs to be on who needs them the most,” he said. “Who needs the most assistant district attorneys, and who needs the most judges? And that should be where we put our resources.”
House Judiciary A Committee Chairman Mark Baker, R-Brandon, said the 14 new prosecutors allotted for the budget year beginning July 1 would cost $1.4 million. That money had already been put into the state’s budget. Another $640,000 that had been set aside for additional justice personnel will be transferred to augment the budget for the state’s drug courts.
Ricky Smith, the president of the Mississippi Prosecutor’s Association, said that in his three-county circuit, Warren County currently is paying for a third assistant district attorney.
“The Warren County Board of Supervisors should not be saddled with a state responsibility,” said Smith, whose circuit also covers Issaquena and Sharkey counties.
He said new prosecutors would allow other circuits to reduce per-prosecutor caseloads.
The governor said the additional assistants will allow district attorneys to choose to go to trial more often.
“We have, too often, plea bargains because DAs are just understaffed,” Bryant said. “If you’re at that type of situation where you’re looking at going into a trial or a plea bargain, we want them to have that choice.”
Because lawmakers were already meeting, the practical effect of the special session was to revive the issue. Bryant is calling on lawmakers to forgo any additional daily pay they would receive as a result of the special session.
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Associated Press Writer Emily Wagster Pettus contributed to this report.
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