In 32 states, you can become a judge with just a high school diploma

This post is going to be a bit of a departure from my usual, but it’s what I’ve been learning about lately. I recently became aware of the fact that “justice court” judges in Mississippi do not have to have law degrees. They are elected by popular vote in partisan elections. The only requirements to run for this office are that the person be a qualified voter, a resident of the county for two years, and a high school graduate.

What are justice court judges responsible for? The state’s website says:

Justice courts have jurisdiction over small claims civil cases involving amounts of $3,500 or less, misdemeanor criminal cases and any traffic offense that occurs outside a municipality. Justice Court judges may conduct bond hearings and preliminary hearings in felony criminal cases and may issue search warrants.

There are 82 Justice Courts with 198 judges. Justice Court judges are the only Mississippi judges elected in partisan races. They serve four-year terms.

My county’s website has more specific examples.

From civil suits to delinquent mobile homes taxes, the Justice Court Department manages a myriad of matters. Traffic tickets issued by the State Highway Patrol and the Harrison County Sheriff's Department are resolved in this department, as well as Public Service tickets, Gaming, Fishing, and Marine Resource tickets.

This Court hears all matters concerning D.U.I.s and violations of County ordinances. All felony cases are first heard in the Justice Court for an initial appearance and the filing of an affidavit.

The cases typically handled by justice courts are the types of cases your average person is most likely to find themselves involved in at some point. From minor traffic violations to civil disputes over rent to criminal charges that can lead to serious consequences like probation or jail time, justice court judges are tasked with upholding the law and ensuring citizens’ rights are upheld.

I think most people assume that when they’re standing in a courtroom in front of a judge with the power to make decisions that could have a serious impact on their life for years to come, that judge is someone who is extremely knowledgeable about legal procedure and the law itself. Someone who not only went to law school, but has enough experience to be able to ensure that the lawyers trying a case are following the correct procedures during a trial. Someone who has spent years in the field to get to where they are and is bound to the highest standards of ethics. That is an incorrect assumption in more than half of the country. I was surprised to learn that not only is this done in Mississippi and other poor, conservative states, but rather the practice is quite widespread all over the country. New York utilizes non-lawyer judges, too.

In many cases, this system is a holdover from another era when trained lawyers were much scarcer (and, I would imagine, the law was somewhat less complex). However, there is at least one state (Montana) that has recently moved towards this system in an attempt to save money. Montana actually removed a long-standing rule allowing anyone tried before a non-lawyer judge to request a new trial before a lawyer judge.

What makes Montana’s situation even more troubling is that its usage of non-lawyer judges is not a vestige of an earlier era, but a recent attempt to save money. From at least 1895 until the 21st century, Montana guaranteed defendants tried before non-lawyer judges to a new trial before a lawyer-judge. Then, in 2003, state lawmakers tweaked the state’s rules to allow counties to exclude themselves from that right by designating their justice courts as courts of record. A state senator told his colleagues while introducing the bill would “provide cost savings to the people of Montana at every level.”

In Mississippi, there’s a requirement that elected justice court judges complete a training course within six months of assuming their office. They can start taking cases during that six month grace period, when they have zero training whatsoever. Can you imagine (assuming you’re like most people and have no particular legal expertise) just waking up one day, putting on a robe, and beginning to preside over a courtroom, just winging it? Would you even have any idea where to begin?

The required training course is given at the Mississippi Judicial College, administered by the Ole Miss law school. I found a schedule for this course online. It lasts two weeks. A law degree takes three years. There is no way in hell it’s possible to get any kind of comprehensive, deep understanding of the law during two weeks of seminars. The sessions are one-hour slots of time meant to teach the new judges about topics that can take multiple semesters of law school to cover. Far be it from me to say that you have to go to law school to gain a deep understanding of the law—a motivated person could surely learn a ton on their own and through work experience. I myself am a person who didn’t go to college for my chosen career—I have a degree in linguistics and became a software engineer (much easier back when I did it than it is now!) But I’ve never wielded any kind of power over people’s lives in my line of work, either. If I had known early on in my career that mistakes could lead to people being wrongfully sent to jail or having their lives completely upturned, I would have been terrified. I don’t think I’d have even tried to just learn as I went. It would feel incredibly irresponsible and risky.

The law is so complicated we all have to pay expensive lawyers to be able to navigate legal procedures with any kind of confidence! If it was possible to get competent enough with the law in two weeks to be qualified to be a judge, I know I, for one, would not be paying a lawyer to help me with anything. All I do is learn random crap. I’m learning about this now for no particular reason at all. The number of tabs I’ve opened just looking into different aspects of this one weird thing is sufficient to conclude that nothing about the judicial system is simple.

A popular route to a justice court judgeship in Mississippi is via a career in law enforcement. Most justice court judges are former police and probation officers. Perhaps these people know more about the law and the justice system on average than people in other fields, but do they know enough to be a judge? And, perhaps just as importantly, are they likely to be fair and impartial to those who have been charged with crimes after a life spent cracking the whip on criminals, working on the “side” of prosecutors against people charged with crimes? If you’ve ever been on probation or had a loved one who was on probation, I would be shocked if you answered that last question in the affirmative.

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Is this really as big of a deal as I’m making it out to be? Maybe lay-people do have a place to play in the judicial system. Maybe your average citizen with a high school diploma is perfectly capable of determining the fates of his peers in court, following all applicable laws and ensuring no civil rights violations occur. Maybe it’s not as complicated as it seems and law school requirements are just a way to keep common people out of positions of power in the government.

I would ask you to again, just imagine putting on that robe tomorrow morning and sitting at the bench, looking out at the anxious faces of people dealing with problems serious enough to lead them to court and who rely on you to make sure they are treated fairly according to the law. All rise. Everyone is standing, looking at you, waiting for you to tell them what to do next and assuming you know more than everyone else in the room about what’s going on. Many of the people on your docket today are without legal representation, as there’s no automatic right to an attorney for civil cases or misdemeanor crimes (side note: our constitutional right to an attorney when charged with a crime is supposed to apply in cases that can lead to a loss of life, property, or liberty as punishment. But Mississippi defines a misdemeanor as a crime which cannot lead to a state prison sentence. It includes crimes that can be punished with up to a year in county jail. This seems… wrong.) Some people who can afford to hire an attorney have done so, and those attorneys are far more knowledgeable than you are about the law. Their arguments sound smart—and complicated. Even if the attorney was wrong or lying, you have no way of knowing that without researching specific details yourself, and you can’t exactly interrupt the court proceedings every few minutes to look things up when something is unfamiliar, which is often.

The situation is often that the only person in the courtroom with a deep knowledge of the law during a trial is the attorney hired by the one side that happens to be wealthy enough to afford to hire one. (In criminal cases, that would be the prosecutor.) Do you think this sounds like a fair system? Many people believe that our court system is rigged in favor of the rich; I think far fewer are aware that we don’t even bother to make sure that the judge presiding over the majority of cases involving poor people is capable of protecting their rights, much less that they receive proper legal advice from an attorney in order to have a fair chance at success in cases they are involved in. In civil cases involving damages over $3500, white collar crimes, probate of estates, etc. the case goes to a higher court with a lawyer-judge, like it does for felonies. But for people who are already barely scraping by, $3500, or even $1000, is a lot of money. A case involving that amount of money could make their life significantly more difficult. The same is not as often true of people who are in court arguing over who gets more of grandma’s estate, and wealthier people are also more able to pay to retain counsel, more likely to have higher education. Yet we’ve decided that there’s no need for a legal expert in the courtroom for lower-value civil cases and misdemeanor crimes involving those who have no such advantages.

I haven’t really found anything like a comprehensive review of justice court cases to determine how often decisions were being improperly made or procedures incorrectly followed in courts run by people without legal education. I suspect if such a study were done, the results would be bleak indeed. Most of the parties involved would not be able to recognize errors and violations made by the court, nor would they necessarily know how to go about addressing any issues they did notice.

This is messed up, and we should really be talking about it more. There’s no shortage of lawyers in 2025—in fact, there seem to be too many lawyers for available jobs. We should not skimp on having qualified judges just because we didn’t have them in 1820.

Okay, that’s enough shouting into the void for today. But really, I think people should know about this, because it was news to me. We will now return to our irregularly scheduled genealogy and history topics…probably. 🙃