Jackson Jambalaya

Far from legislation that makes Mississippi an outlier, the outcome places our state in the company of 20 states that approach the youth court process from one that defaulted to a closed status to a presumption of openness. That opens the process not only to public scrutiny but also to news media scrutiny.

Before the special session vote, Mississippi had a closed system with conditional exceptions, a status shared by 15 other states. Now, Mississippi’s system is presumed to be open – but it remains within judges’ discretion to seal records or close proceedings as they deem appropriate to safeguard the juvenile’s legal interests.

Transparency and accountability matter. According to state youth court records, juvenile gun crimes in the state totaled 780 in 2024 after peaking at 846 in 2023 – and that’s just the crimes local law enforcement reported to the federal government.

Mississippi had the highest gun death rate in the country overall in 2023. The overall gun death rate increased by 61% from 2014 to 2023. Firearms were the leading cause of death among young people ages 1-17 in 2023.  In 2022, there were at least 45 domestic violence-related homicides in Mississippi. 78% were by firearm.

To suggest that it’s in the public interest to cloak legal proceedings involving drive-by shootings and other serious juvenile crimes from public scrutiny ignores the danger that the proliferation of such crimes presents. Such crimes are a clear and present danger to public safety.

Mississippi’s youth court system has operated almost entirely in the shadows for half a century, and that inevitably breeds a youth court system that shields juvenile criminals from accountability. The public needs and deserves to know.

The prior state youth court system ignored the legislative rationale that “due process dies in the darkness.” Opening the system allows the public to verify both whether vulnerable children and the state’s taxpayers are being treated fairly.

The key concept for making these structural judicial changes work is judicial discretion. There must be a balance between protecting vulnerable juvenile defendants – who in some cases are either abused or neglected or both – from being victimized again by the system.

Youth court judges must remain laser-focused on the privacy rights of children who have been victimized by abuse or by trafficking. So, too, must the media outlets now granted access to the proceedings. Privacy rights for juveniles now have to be a door that swings both ways.

Mississippi's chancellors and judges are perfectly capable of exercising proper judicial discretion, allowing them to close courtrooms or seal sensitive files on a case-by-case basis when a minor's well-being is at risk. That increase in professionalism in the youth court system should benefit youthful offenders.

In other words, the new law’s $29 million price tag will replace part-time youth court “referees” with nine new chancellors. Only 24 of Mississippi’s 82 counties have full-time youth court coverage, highlighting a rural disparity that lawmakers were wise to address. Juveniles in rural Mississippi deserve the legal advantages already enjoyed by those in more heavily populated and more affluent communities.

That is not to disparage the former “referees” in the system. Most were wise, empathetic, and genuinely had the best interests of juvenile offenders and their loved ones at heart. Retiring U.S. District Judge Tom S. Lee got his start on the bench in rural youth court. But complex juvenile justice requires dedicated, specialized jurists rather than part-time lawyers serving just a few days a month.

The hard truth is that juveniles in this state are committing adult crimes that require a more robust, more professional youth court system than Mississippi had been providing – not only to protect the youth, but to protect the rest of us.