During a hearing of the Mississippi Senate’s Judiciary A committee that featured testimony from judges, clerks, constables, prosecutors and defense attorneys, the people working in these small-claim courts painted a picture of systemic pressures warping that system to be inefficient or downright inaccessible in some areas.
Committee leaders said the testimony underscored the need for better statewide data and possible reforms in the 2026 legislative session.
Judges warn of docket pressures
Judge Matt Lachaussee of Jackson County told committee members that justice courts don’t have the staff needed to adequately handle the number of civil cases coming in.
Lachaussee said the problem is particularly acute in Mississippi’s largest counties. He used Harrison County as an example because he handled “thousands” of justice court cases there as an attorney.
“Justice court judges are part-time. There are judges, who aren't scheduled on duty, come in anyway to help the judge that is on duty because their dockets are so big they can't get through them in a day,” Lachaussee said.
Lachaussee warned that raising the jurisdictional limit, the maximum claim amount justice courts can hear, would have little effect in small counties but would swamp larger ones. The current limit for justice court is $3,500 and there was an unsuccessful effort to increase it to $5,000 during the 2025 legislative session.
Clerks push back on jurisdiction increase
Circuit clerks testified that raising the jurisdictional limit would cut into filing fees that fund their operations, including staff salaries, judicial salaries and legal aid. Representing the Circuit Clerks Association, Janette Nolan of Marion County said a raise to $5,000 would reduce circuit court revenues significantly, but not their workloads.
“We will send out the same amount of jury summons, still impanel the same numbers of juries, still have the same number of grand jury meetings, still issue the same marriage licenses, collect the criminal fine payments, conduct elections and absentee voting,” Nolan said. “The work will continue, so please don’t think it’s a direct ratio.”
Justice court clerks, meanwhile, warned that their offices are underfunded and already burdened by high caseloads. They noted that fees for basic services, like a $5 appeal filing, have not been updated in decades.
Defense attorney describes defendants in Limbo
Mike Carr, testifying for the Mississippi Bar Association, said defendants are sometimes being held for months without proper bond hearings or trial dates. These delays are caused by problems like court reporter shortages in the Delta keeping some judges from holding trials since January. Carr said in multiple areas, state rules requiring periodic jail docket reviews aren’t being followed. He urged lawmakers to set deadlines.
“There needs to be a time period where if y’all don’t get to it by this time, they will be released because you can’t just indefinitely hold people,” Carr said.
Lawmakers react
Justice courts are county-run, not state-run, so there are 82 different systems across the state, with many still relying on paper records or outdated software. Judiciary A Chairman Sen. Brice Wiggins says this has led to inadequate data collection that’s keeping lawmakers from really understanding the full scope of these problems.
“We don't have data for our courts like it needs to be. … “We're flying blind when we try to make policy on things,” Wiggins said.
That issue became apparent during the judicial redistricting process this year, Wiggins said, but he also acknowledged that the issues raised during the hearing have existed for a long time.
“The legislature, as a whole, has not paid attention to the court system in this manner for probably decades,” Wiggins said.
Sen. Derrick Simmons, the minority leader, said he wants to see more data before raising the jurisdictional limit, and that simply enforcing jail review rules would prevent excessive re-trial jail holdings. He also argued that pay raises are overdue.
“It’s time for us to pay our justice court clerks, our justice court judges, our circuit clerks,” Simmons said. “We are talking about changing the way they offer the services that they offer to the state of Mississippi and that means having to pay them as well.
Lawmakers are expected to consider a modest jurisdictional increase, new reporting requirements to standardize data collection across all 82 counties, and possible pay raises for justice court employees during the 2026 session.
