The Mississippi Court of Appeals is the intermediate-level appellate court

Appellate court

An appellate court, commonly called an appeals court or court of appeals or appeal court , is any court of law that is empowered to hear an appeal of a trial court or other lower tribunal...

 for the state

U.S. state

A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...

 of Mississippi

Mississippi

Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...

. The court was created by the Mississippi Legislature

Mississippi Legislature

The Mississippi Legislature is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Mississippi. The bicameral Legislature is composed of the lower Mississippi House of Representatives, with 122 members, and the upper Mississippi Senate, with 52 members. Both Representatives and Senators serve four-year...

 to relieve a backlog of cases in the Supreme Court of Mississippi

Supreme Court of Mississippi

The Supreme Court of Mississippi is the highest court in the state of Mississippi. It was created in the first constitution of the state following its admission as a State of the Union in 1817. Initially it was known as the "High Court of Errors and Appeals." The Court is an appellate court, as...

, and commenced operations in 1995.

Jurisdiction

The Mississippi Court of Appeals hears and decides appeals from the various trial courts of the state. The cases the court hears are assigned to it by the Supreme Court of Mississippi, and generally concern issues in which the law is already relatively settled. The Supreme Court may review Court of Appeals decisions, but if the Supreme Court declines review, the decision of the Court of Appeals stands.

The court's ten judges are elected from five districts, which coincided with Mississippi's congressional districts

Mississippi's congressional districts

The State of Mississippi currently has four congressional districts. In the 112th Congress, the Mississippi delegation consists of one Democrats and three Republican.-Apportionment history:...

prior to Mississippi's losing one district in 2000. Some of the state's counties are divided between districts. However, the districts are not jurisdictional: appeals from all over the state go to the Supreme Court and may be deflected by it to the Court of Appeals.

Judges

As of 2011, there are ten judges on the Mississippi Court of Appeals:

• Chief Judge L. Joseph Lee
• Presiding Judge Tyree Irving
• Presiding Judge T. Kenneth Griffis
• Judge William H. Myers
• Judge Larry E. Roberts
• Judge Donna M. Barnes
• Judge David M. Ishee
• Judge Virginia C. Carlton
• Judge Jimmy Maxwell
• Judge Ermea J. Russell

External links

• Homepage of the Mississippi Court of Appeals