Two seasoned candidates, incumbent Judge Richard A. Smith and challenger George Dunbar Prewitt Jr., are seeking the Fourth District, Position 1 Circuit Court seat Tuesday.
In Leflore County, the district includes polling precincts in Minter City, North Greenwood, Money, Northeast Greenwood (the Leflore County Civic Center), Schlater, West Greenwood, Southeast Greenwood and Mississippi Valley State University.
Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday.
The district also includes several precincts in Sunflower County.
Smith, 56, an attorney, has served in the judgeship since he was appointed by Gov. Ronnie Musgrove in July 2001 after the retirement of Judge Gray Evans.
Smith first ran for the position in 2002 and was re-elected in 2006 and 2010. He defeated Prewitt in 2010.
A 1975 graduate of Caldwell High School in Columbus, Smith received his bachelor’s degree, cum laude, from the University of Mississippi in May 1978 and his law degree from that university in May 1981.
From 1981 until January 1995 Smith was engaged in private practice in Greenwood. He was elected Leflore County Court and Youth Court judge in 1994 and re-elected in 1998.
During that time, he also was appointed Special Master in Leflore County Chancery Court.
Smith has served as a deacon and an elder at his church, First Presbyterian Church of Greenwood. He and his wife, the former Susan Evans, have two adult children and a grandchild.
He declined to be interviewed for this article.
Prewitt, 66, a Greenville attorney, is a native of Starkville.
He graduated from Starkville’s W.C. Henderson High School, which was segregated, in 1965.
In 1967, Prewitt was the first African-American to try out for the Mississippi State football team. Sidelined with an injury early on, he was never reinstated despite a strenuous workout regimen.
A U.S. Army veteran, Prewitt served in Vietnam. He received the Purple Heart for wounds sustained in combat. He also was awarded the Combat Infantry Badge.
Prewitt married his wife, Bettye, in 1971, and they moved to Greenville in 1976.
He graduated from Mississippi State University in 1972 with a degree in history and completed a law degree at the University of Mississippi in 1987.
He and his wife have six adult children.
Prewitt said, in prepared remarks, that he has the temperament necessary to be a circuit court judge.
“My personal qualities of equanimity and persistence in the face of systemic adversity are absolutely necessary for a circuit judge in the Fourth District because the causes of unrelenting poverty in the Mississippi Delta have their genesis in the lack of fair and impartial justice in our courts,” he said.
“Our court system is the final vestige of the Civil War for it perpetuates the notion that not everyone will be treated fairly without regard to race or economic status, and that must change,” Prewitt said.
- Contact Bob Darden at 581-7239 or bdarden@gwcommonwealth.com.
