Miss. State Supreme Court bans one of its own from dissent

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Originally posted at the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal

EDITOR's NOTE: The full dissent is reproduced below.

By Patsy R. Brumfield

JACKSON Something unusual happened Thursday at the Mississippi Supreme Court.

It may be the first time a majority of the justices voted to prohibit a colleague from publishing a dissent in a case.

In other words, Presiding Justice Oliver Diaz of Ocean Springs disagreed with a court decision and wanted to write about it. His fellow judges said, no, he couldn't and they apparently stopped the court clerk from filing Diaz's statement into the record.

Diaz's document also wasn't made available to the public, as every other order and dissent are.

"My job as a Supreme Court justice is to write opinions and dissents, when necessary," Diaz said later Thursday. "I was prevented from doing so by a majority of the court."

Requests for comments were not answered by Supreme Court Chief Justice James Smith, Justice Michael Randolph and Justice James Graves.

The Daily Journal also filed a Freedom of Information request with Court Administrator Jack Pool for a copy of the case decision, and any other paper and electronic documents associated with it.

Pool said he didn't know how long it would take him to comply with the request.

The case at issue was a wrongful death lawsuit filed by an employee of the court against the Mississippi State Veterans Affairs Board.

The Board apparently appealed a 2006 Hinds Circuit Court decision to the Supreme Court.

Details were sketchy Thursday because the documents weren't immediately available from the high court.

Thursday, Randolph wrote the decision dismissing the appeal, which the court apparently had agreed to hear and then changed its mind.