Three candidates will vie for the Circuit Court seat being vacated by Judge Betty Sanders in the November election.
The final qualifying deadline to enter the race was Friday.
Sanders, a five-term incumbent, announced her decision to retire at the end of her current term in April.
The three contestants for the Place 3 seat in the Fourth District are James Littleton, Takiyah Perkins and Carol L. White-Richard.
The Fourth District has jurisdiction in Leflore, Washington and Sunflower counties.
Perkins, 32, is a Greenwood native and the daughter of state Rep. Willie Perkins, D-Greenwood, and former Greenwood Mayor Sheriel Perkins.
Perkins currently serves as assistant district attorney in the Fourth Judicial District.
Littleton, 41, is currently a Leflore County Justice Court judge. He previously served as a Greenwood Municipal Court judge and has also served as city attorney of Greenwood, Mound Bayou and Arcola.
White-Richard is currently the public defender for Sunflower County. The 43-year-old Greenville resident has worked as an attorney for 17 years, including time as a prosecutor.
In addition to the race for Sanders’ open seat, two of the three other judges in the Fourth Circuit will face challengers.
Judge Richard A. Smith will again face George Dunbar Prewitt Jr. of Greenville for Place 1.
Prewitt unsuccessfully challenged Smith in 2006 and 2010.
Rep. Willie Bailey, D-Greenville, will challenge incumbent Judge Ashley Hines for the Place 2 seat on the bench.
Bailey has represented Washington County in the state House since 1995.
The final incumbent in the Fourth Circuit, Judge Margaret Carey-McCray, is running unopposed.
Outside of the Fourth Circuit, no other judges up for re-election in the Greenwood area this year will face a challenger.
Leflore County Judge Kevin Adams will run unopposed. Adams was originally appointed to the bench in 2008 by then-Gov. Haley Barbour to fill the rest of Solomon Osborne’s term. Osborne resigned after being suspended and was later banned by the Mississippi Supreme Court from ever holding judicial office again.
Adams won a controversial and narrow 10-vote victory in 2010 over Fred Clark, a Greenwood attorney and former municipal court judge. Clark challenged the election results in court, but the case was never resolved.
The incumbents in the Fifth Circuit, which covers Carroll and six other counties, will all seek re-election unopposed.
Chancery court judges in the Sixth District, which includes Carroll County, and the Seventh District, which includes Leflore County, are all running for another term without a challenger.
All three Mississippi Appeals Court judges up for re-election in November are also running unopposed. Sitting judges Jimmy Maxwell of Oxford, Kenny Griffis of Ridgeland and Virginia Carlton of Columbia are the sole candidates in their respective districts.
