Ward v. Colom

In 2011, the Mississippi Legislature amended Mississippi Code Section 97-37-7, granting enhanced concealed-carry licensees the privilege of carrying a concealed firearm in Mississippi courthouses, save for courtrooms, which the Legislature left within the province of judges. Litigants, witnesses, and family members who did not have enhanced concealed-carry licenses were subject to the general ban found in Mississippi Code Section 97-37-1 (Rev. 2014), which makes carrying a concealed weapon illegal for persons without enhanced concealed-carry licenses. Nonetheless, the three chancellors of the Fourteenth Chancery District, on their own motion, issued a court order prohibiting enhanced concealed-carry licensees from possessing a firearm in and around courthouse buildings of the Fourteenth District. Thereafter, Ricky Ward, an enhanced concealed-carry licensee, filed a petition to modify or dismiss the order. The chancellors issued another order denying Ward’s petition and reiterated that enhanced concealed-carry licensees would be prohibited from possessing a firearm in all Fourteenth District courthouses. Ward then filed an Extraordinary Writ of Prohibition to the Mississippi Supreme Court, seeking to have the orders vacated as unconstitutional and in direct conflict with state law. The Supreme Court ordered additional briefing, after which concluded the orders were facially unconstitutional. Furthermore, the orders "defy existing Mississippi statutory and caselaw. Accordingly, the orders are vacated. They are nullius juris." View "Ward v. Colom" on Justia Law