State Sen. Jenifer Branning wins a Mississippi Supreme Court seat

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JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — State Sen. Jenifer Branning has won a seat on the Mississippi Supreme Court, defeating Justice Jim Kitchens.

The Associated Press on Friday declared the race for Branning as counties reported official results from the Nov. 26 runoff election.

Kitchens and Branning advanced to the runoff as leaders among five candidates in the Nov. 5 general election. They ran in District 1, also known as the Central District, which stretches from the Delta region through the Jackson metro area and over to the Alabama border.

Mississippi judicial candidates run without party labels. But Democratic areas largely supported Kitchens, and Republican ones supported Branning.

Kitchens issued a statement Friday congratulating Branning.

“During the 16 years that I was privileged to serve the people of Mississippi on their highest court, I have kept my oath of office by administering justice without respect to persons and by doing equal right to the poor and the rich,” Kitchens said. “I will continue to serve the cause of justice by returning to the practice of law.”

Branning serves in the Senate as a Republican and was endorsed by the state Republican Party. She calls herself a “constitutional conservative” and says she opposes “liberal, activists judges” and “the radical left.”

Kitchens was seeking a third term and is the more senior of the court’s two presiding justices, which had put him next in line to serve as chief justice. He was endorsed by the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Action Fund, which calls itself “a catalyst for racial justice in the South and beyond.”

In September, Kitchens sided with a man on death row for a murder conviction in which a key witness recanted her testimony. In 2018, Kitchens dissented in a pair of death row cases dealing with the use of the drug midazolam in state executions.