Attorney Damon R. Stevenson for Hinds County

I enjoy walking into the Courthouse on a Monday morning and seeing potential jurors everywhere. Lots of jurors means your Hinds County judges are ensuring that courtrooms are open for trials. What I have discovered as a a Judge is that just the presence of jurors can greatly incentivize cases to resolve. Sometimes once individuals know that they are about to face a jury of their peers, they will plea in a criminal case or the parties will settle the matter in a civil case. So to the jurors who show up every Monday to help move cases, thank you. And even if you don’t get to actually sit on a jury to decide the outcome of a case, know that in just showing up for jury duty, you have greatly helped move cases in Hinds County. Thank you for your time and your service.

One thing I promise to provide as a Judge is transparency. I was appointed Sept 1. We started with no staff, no office space, and no courtroom. Judge Kidd allowed me to work out of space in his office until I had an office in the courthouse. With the help of the Hinds County Board of Supervisors, we got an empty courtroom up and running and started presiding over criminal and civil matters in November. We now have a full staff in place including a Court Administrator, a Court Reporter, and a Law Clerk. (Side note: let’s encourage young people to become court reporters. There is a shortage of court reporters and many predicted it would take months to find a court reporter. You can’t have criminal court at the felony level without a court reporter. Maybe the Career Development Center in Jackson Public School District could offer some classes to high school students.) The Lord blessed us to locate and have a court reporter hired in October. In addition to the administrative function of a Judge, I understand my role in moving cases on my docket. To that end, in the two months since we had a fuctional courtroom, we have resolved 30 criminal cases by trial or plea. This does not include the arraignments, bond reviews, motions hearing, and civil matters we have heard in the last two months. We have also regularly conducted Court at the Raymond Detention Center so that the Sheriff Department does not have to transport inmates to the Courthouse. This saves the cost of transporting multiple inmates from Raymond to Jackson and frees up the baliffs in the Courthouse from having to guard inmates.

Before we leave for the New Year, our staff is making sure everything is in place for January as we have criminal trials scheduled every week during the month. Looking forward to having a great year in 2026. Be safe and have a Happy New Year!