Mississippi’s Pearl Youth Court Judge John Shirley has resigned and the youth court has been closed as a result of Judge John Shirley’s prohibition of a woman from seeing her 4-month-old child for over 14 months. The reason? She hadn’t paid overdue court fees. The Clarion Ledger reports that “the Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center at the University of Mississippi School of Law filed a complaint on behalf of their client.” They asked for Judge Shirley to be fired. The Washington Post reprinted some of the press release from the MacArthur Justice Center explains:
In August 2016, “Mother A,” an African-American resident of Jackson, was traveling through Pearl while looking for employment. She was a passenger in a friend’s car, and her child rode with them in a car seat. When the car was stopped for a minor traffic violation, it was discovered that both adults had outstanding warrants for routine misdemeanor offenses. Upon arresting the women, the officer contacted DHS claiming that the child was “abandoned” as a result of the women being detained. The baby’s grandmother arrived on the scene within minutes, yet the officer still insisted that the child be taken before Judge [John] Shirley at the Pearl Youth Court. Less than half an hour later, Judge Shirley awarded custody to the baby’s grandmother. An order was later entered prohibiting “Mother A” from having any contact with her baby until court fees were paid in full.
The Clarion Ledger says that Shirley denies any wrongdoing, and claims his resignation from his position was a political one.
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"I didn't resign because of any pressure," Shirley said. "I resigned because I got tired of the policies in that administration."
Shirley said Mayor Jake Windham, who took office in July, wanted to close the Youth Court to save money and is using the case as a tactic to get what he wants. [...]
After receiving Johnson’s demands, including that Judge Shirley be fired and the Youth Court closed, an emergency meeting of the Pearl Board of Aldermen was scheduled for Wednesday evening. The agenda items for the meeting were “threatened litigation by the MacArthur Justice Center” and a vote on whether to close Pearl’s Youth Court.
At that meeting, Shirley resigned from both his Youth Court and Municipal
Court positions and the board voted unanimously to close the Youth Court permanently, according to Johnson.
It seems very clear that while the motivations of Mayor Windham are likely dubious—he ran against an incumbent Republican on a ticket calling the incumbent a “tax and spend” candidate—the results have been easily handed to him with the systemic racism in the judgeship chair. Windham has cut city staff, and this is clearly another notch in that belt, as the Youth court will now move back to the Rankin County jurisdiction. It doesn’t solve the racist predatory nature of the court system, but it does once again put a spotlight on how inhumane some citizens of our country are treated by our courts.