Revealed: Mississippi bill would create 80% white judicial district in majority-Black city

Republican-proposed jurisdiction fuels allegations of ‘apartheid in Jackson’

Eighty per cent of the white residents in Mississippi’s majority-Black capital city would be included in a proposed new judicial district with hand-selected prosecutors and judges, an analysis by the Guardian has found, leading to further allegations of deliberate racial prejudice in a Republican-backed bill.

The measure would increase the geographic size of an improvement district in the downtown area of the city of Jackson from 7.8 square miles to 25 square miles. It would create a new unelected judicial district within the city, with two judges, two prosecutors and two public defenders.