Leslie King
2011 - Present
2028
13
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Leslie King is a judge for District 1-Position 2 of the Mississippi Supreme Court. He assumed office in 2011. His current term ends on December 31, 2028.
King ran for re-election for the District 1-Position 2 judge of the Mississippi Supreme Court. He won in the general election on November 3, 2020.
King first became a member of the Mississippi Supreme Court after being appointed by Gov. Haley Barbour (R) in 2011. He was subsequently elected to the court in a nonpartisan election in 2012 and re-elected in 2020. To read more about judicial selection in Mississippi, click here.
In 2020, Ballotpedia published Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship, a study examining the partisan affiliation of all state supreme court justices in the country. As part of this study, we assigned each justice a Confidence Score describing our confidence in the degree of partisanship exhibited by the justices' past partisan behavior, before they joined the court.[1] King received a confidence score of Mild Democrat.[2] Click here to read more about this study.
Biography
King received an undergraduate degree from the University of Mississippi in 1970 and a J.D. from Texas Southern University School of Law in 1973.[3][4] He was first appointed to the Mississippi Supreme Court in 2011 and appointed to the Mississippi Court of Appeals in 1994. Prior to his service as a judge, he was a representative in the Mississippi House of Representatives from 1980 to 1994.[3]
Elections
2020
See also: Mississippi Supreme Court elections, 2020
General election
General election for Mississippi Supreme Court District 1 Position 2
Incumbent Leslie King won election in the general election for Mississippi Supreme Court District 1 Position 2 on November 3, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Leslie King (Nonpartisan) | 100.0 | 334,129 |
| Total votes: 334,129 | |||
 = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
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2012
- See also: Mississippi judicial elections, 2012
King was elected to his first term after running unopposed on November 6, 2012.[5][6]
Campaign themes
2020
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Leslie King did not complete Ballotpedia's 2020 Candidate Connection survey.
Analysis
Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship (2020)
Last updated: June 15, 2020
In 2020, Ballotpedia published Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship, a study examining the partisan affiliation of all state supreme court justices in the country as of June 15, 2020.
The study presented Confidence Scores that represented our confidence in each justice's degree of partisan affiliation. This was not a measure of where a justice fell on an ideological spectrum, but rather a measure of how much confidence we had that a justice was or had been affiliated with a political party. The scores were based on seven factors, including but not limited to party registration.[7]
The five resulting categories of Confidence Scores were:
- Strong Democrat
- Mild Democrat
- Indeterminate[8]
- Mild Republican
- Strong Republican
This justice's Confidence Score, as well as the factors contributing to that score, is presented below. The information below was current as of June 2020.
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Leslie
King
Mississippi
- Partisan Confidence Score:
Mild Democrat - Judicial Selection Method:
Elected - Key Factors:
- Held political office as a Democrat
- Was a registered Democrat before 2020
- Donated less than $2,000 to Democratic candidates
Partisan Profile
Details:
King was a Democratic member of the Mississippi House of Representatives from 1980-1994. He was a registered Democrat prior to 2020. King donated $200 to Democratic candidates and organizations. He was appointed by Gov. Haley Barbour (R).
Other Scores:
In a 2012 study of campaign contributions, King received a campaign finance score of -0.57, indicating a liberal ideological leaning.
Bonica and Woodruff campaign finance scores (2012)
In October 2012, political science professors Adam Bonica and Michael Woodruff of Stanford University attempted to determine the partisan ideology of state supreme court justices. They created a scoring system in which a score above 0 indicated a more conservative-leaning ideology, while scores below 0 were more liberal.
King received a campaign finance score of -0.57, indicating a liberal ideological leaning. This was more liberal than the average score of 0.69 that justices received in Mississippi.
The study was based on data from campaign contributions by the judges themselves, the partisan leaning of those who contributed to the judges' campaigns, or, in the absence of elections, the ideology of the appointing body (governor or legislature). This study was not a definitive label of a justice, but an academic summary of various relevant factors.[9]
Noteworthy cases
Mississippi Supreme Court rejects state-level Auer deference, ends judicial deference in state (2021)
The Mississippi Supreme Court on June 10, 2021, ruled 8-1 in Mississippi Methodist Hospital and Rehabilitation Center Inc. v. Mississippi Division of Medicaid to end the state practice of deferring to agency interpretations of regulations, a doctrine known as Auer deference at the federal level. The court’s decision, combined with its prior rejection of state-level Chevron deference, effectively banned judicial deference practices in the state, according to an analysis by Pacific Legal Foundation attorney Daniel Ortner.[10]
Justice Leslie King wrote the opinion for the court, noting that the practice of “[d]eferring to agency interpretations of rules and regulations is inconsistent with the standard of review for statutory interpretation, causes confusion, causes inconsistencies in application and within our own caselaw, and violates article 1, section 2, of Mississippi’s Constitution.” The court’s decision institutes a new period of de novo review over agency regulatory interpretations.[11]
The court ended the state-level Chevron deference doctrine, which requires courts to defer to agency interpretations of unclear statutes, in the 2018 case King v. Mississippi Military Department. The justices argued that the practice violated the separation of powers prescribed by the state constitution. The King decision instituted a new standard of de novo review over such agency interpretations, which the court later reaffirmed in a 2020 tax and gambling case. Click here to find out more.
State supreme court judicial selection in Mississippi
- See also: Judicial selection in Mississippi
The nine justices on the Mississippi Supreme Court are elected to eight-year terms in nonpartisan elections. All candidates must run in the general election (as Mississippi holds no primary for judicial candidates) and must face re-election if they wish to serve again.[12] For more information about these elections, visit the Mississippi judicial elections page.
Unlike most states, supreme court justices in Mississippi are elected to represent specific districts. The nine justices are divided among three supreme court districts (not to be confused with the 22 divisions of the circuit courts) and are voted into office by the residents of their respective regions.[13] Only the states of Illinois, Kentucky, and Louisiana use a similar system.
Qualifications
To serve on this court, a judge must be:
- a qualified elector for and from the district in which election is sought;
- a minimum of 30 years old;
- a practicing attorney; and
- a state citizen for at least five years.[12]
Chief justice
The court's chief justice is selected by seniority. He or she serves until retirement when the justice with the next most judicial experience becomes chief.[12]
Vacancies
If a midterm vacancy occurs on the court, a temporary judge is named by the governor. Appointees serve out the remainder of their predecessor's unexpired term if four or fewer years of the term remain. If there are more than four years remaining, the appointee will run in the next general election, taking place nine months or more after the vacancy occurs. The winner of the election will serve the remainder of the term.[14]
The map below highlights how vacancies are filled in state supreme courts across the country.
See also
External links
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Officeholder Mississippi Supreme Court District 1 Position 2 |
Footnotes
- ↑ We calculated confidence scores by collecting several data points such as party registration, donations, and previous political campaigns.
- ↑ The five possible confidence scores were: Strong Democrat, Mild Democrat, Indeterminate, Mild Republican, and Strong Republican.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 State of Mississippi Judiciary, "Associate Justice Leslie D. King," accessed November 3, 2017
- ↑ State of Mississippi Judiciary, "Press release: Judge King appointed," accessed June 29, 2021
- ↑ Mississippi Secretary of State, "2012 Candidate Qualifying List," accessed June 29, 2021
- ↑ Mississippi Secretary of State, "Certified election results," accessed June 29, 2021
- ↑ The seven factors were party registration, donations made to partisan candidates, donations made to political parties, donations received from political parties or bodies with clear political affiliation, participation in political campaigns, the partisanship of the body responsible for appointing the justice, and state trifecta status when the justice joined the court.
- ↑ An Indeterminate score indicates that there is either not enough information about the justice’s partisan affiliations or that our research found conflicting partisan affiliations.
- ↑ Stanford University, "State Supreme Court Ideology and 'New Style' Judicial Campaigns," October 31, 2012
- ↑ Yale Journal on Regulation, "The End of Deference: An Update from Mississippi, by Daniel Ortner," June 26, 2021
- ↑ JUSTIA, "Mississippi Methodist Hospital & Rehabilitation Center, Inc. v. Mississippi Division of Medicaid et al.," June 10, 2021
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 National Center for State Courts, "Methods of Judicial Selection," accessed September 7, 2021
- ↑ State of Mississippi Judiciary, "Supreme Court," accessed September 7, 2021
- ↑ National Center for State Courts, "Methods of Judicial Selection," accessed September 7, 2021
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Federal courts:
Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals • U.S. District Court: Northern District of Mississippi, Southern District of Mississippi • U.S. Bankruptcy Court: Northern District of Mississippi, Southern District of Mississippi
State courts:
Mississippi Supreme Court • Mississippi Court of Appeals • Mississippi circuit courts • Mississippi Chancery Court • Mississippi county courts • Mississippi justice courts • Mississippi youth courts • Mississippi Municipal Courts
State resources:
Courts in Mississippi • Mississippi judicial elections • Judicial selection in Mississippi
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|---|---|---|---|
| Current |
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| Former |
Oliver Diaz • William Waller • Charles Easley • David Chandler (Mississippi) • Ann Lamar • James Graves • George Carlson • Jess Dickinson • James W. Smith • Michael Mills (Mississippi) • Randy Pierce • James Coleman (federal judge) • | ||
