A longtime Leflore County judge has been chosen to assist Hinds County with its backlog of cases.
Judge Betty W. Sanders of Greenwood said on Thursday that she started her assignment on June 27. The details of her assignment are still being worked out.
“It’s very gratifying to be asked to come back and assist my colleagues,” she said.
Sanders, along with Judges David Anthony Chandler and Isadore Patrick Jr., are being assigned through funding provided by the American Rescue Plan Act. Chandler is a retired state Supreme Court justice from Ackerman, and Patrick is a retired circuit judge from Vicksburg.
Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann announced the assignment of these three judges as well the addition of two more district attorneys to help with a backlog of nearly 3,000 cases, Supertalk Mississippi reported.
Sanders has a long history of judicial service.
She was the first African American woman elected to a circuit court judgeship in Mississippi. She served five terms as a circuit judge for the Fourth Circuit District, which includes Leflore, Sunflower and Washington counties, beginning in 1984.
During her time in the Fourth Circuit, she helped establish its drug court, the third in the state at that time.
She retired in 2014 but didn’t stay on the sidelines for long. She quickly went back to work after serving an interim period required of retiring judges.
“I went back at the end of that 90 days as a senior status judge, taking assignments across Mississippi when a judge recuses from a case and they need a judge to go with that docket,” she said. “I’ve been doing that all along since I retired.”
Sanders previously assisted Hinds County from August 2020 to April 2021 when the COVID-19 pandemic was causing a backlog of cases.
- Contact Kevin Edwards at 662-581-7233 or kedwa-rds@gwcommonwealth.com.
