When voters head to the polls Tuesday, they will have two options when it comes to Circuit Court Judge.
Local attorney Monique Montgomery is challenging incumbent Lee Coleman for the District 16, Place 3 seat. The position is a four-year term that pays approximately $120,000 annually. The candidates must live in either Clay or Noxubee County in order to run.
Montgomery and Coleman sat down individually with The Dispatch last week to discuss why each think they are the better candidate for the job.
Montgomery, 48, said she first realized she wanted to be involved in the legal system when she was in middle school. Once she began practicing law, she realized she wanted to serve as a judge.
“I just had the desire to participate in having good laws and helping make good laws and making sure the laws were carried out,” she told The Dispatch Wednesday.
After graduating from S.D. Lee High School in Columbus, Montgomery went to the University of Southern Mississippi. After graduation, she moved to Atlanta to work in the internal contracts division at CNN. Several years later, she moved back to Mississippi to attend law school at Mississippi College. After moving around the South where she said she served as a corporate lawyer, Montgomery and her husband, a local minister, settled in the Golden Triangle to raise their three children. In the late 1990s, Montgomery began working at Turner & Associates law firm in Clay County as well as serving as one of the county’s public defenders. She served as a public defender for a year and a half before focusing on her workers’ compensation work at the firm. She left the Clay County firm to open her own practice in Columbus. Most recently, Montgomery served for three and a half years as the Brooksville city attorney and city prosecutor. That ended in 2013.
As a lawyer, Montgomery said she enjoyed “being a voice for the voiceless.”
However, she said she has given up her practice to run for judge.
Montgomery has previously run for circuit court judge as well as justice court judge. She lost both elections. Montgomery said she is “determined to get a judge seat,” alleging local judges are handing down verdicts based on race.
“Some cases they do one thing for some people then they do that same case and they’ll give them something else,” she said. “Some people say it’s based on race…I just don’t think that’s right.
“They have drug cases where people are not given the same sentences that other races are given. That’s what I’ve observed. You know, I’ve come out of the courthouse after watching another public defender or another criminal defense attorney. His client gets probation and I go right after him and my client gets three years and I’m like, ‘What’s going on? What’s the explanation?'”
Montgomery said she feels her clients have received harsher sentences than other attorneys’ clients because she is a “double minority” as a black woman.
“Being a woman and being black, I don’t know which one of those they’re playing, but since I’m both I just say it’s unfair. It should not matter whether you’re black or white. You should have justice regardless.”
A family tradition of ‘giving back’
Coleman, 65, said he feels he has been “fair and impartial” during his four years on the bench.
“The most important thing about the job, I think, is for the judge to be completely impartial and give a fair and impartial trial to everybody,” he said Wednesday. “I think I’ve done that because I really don’t have an agenda. I’m not for one side or the other. A judge is like an umpire in a ballgame. You just call the balls and strikes. You shouldn’t care which team wins and I feel like I’ve done that the four years I’ve had the job.”
A native of West Point and married father of two, Coleman said his first foray into politics was at the age of 13 when he began organizing precincts. The son and grandson of politicians, Coleman said being a pubic servant is a “family tradition.”
“I think everybody ought to strive to give back and I hope that I’m a good example of someone who has tried to do that,” he said.
Coleman received his bachelor’s degree and his law degree from the University of Mississippi. He had his own general practice law firm for 36 years before being elected to his current role in 2010. Early in his career, he served two terms in the Mississippi House of Representatives. He decided not to run for a third term after he was appointed the Clay County Board attorney. He served in that role for 26 years.
Coleman said he first ran for the judge position four years ago because he thought he was the most qualified person for the job.
“I had a broad background of doing everything, I had tried every kind of case in the world when I was in private practice,” he said. “I had a background in criminal law, I had a background in all types of civil cases, plus, I had the experience of being county board attorney and a member of the legislature, all of which was extremely helpful in being a circuit judge.”
Coleman said he sought a second term because he was happy in the position and wanted to serve the community for four more years.
“You’re performing a public service,” he said. “A lot of the times, some of the things you have to do are heartbreaking but you have to do it. Somebody has to do it. It makes you feel good to know that you’re doing a public service and helping the people out, making sure the laws are enforced and providing good justice for people that appear in front of you.”
Montgomery moved by a sentence
Montgomery said she is confident she will win the election based on a ruling Coleman made last year regarding a man convicted of domestic violence. Last February, Coleman gave Alan Redden a five-year suspended sentence and placed him on unsupervised probation after he pleaded guilty to aggravated assault domestic violence. Less than five months later, Redden violated his parole by attacking a 13-year-old girl. Coleman revoked Redden’s probation and sentenced him to five years with the Mississippi Department of Corrections.
Redden was eligible for parole several months ago. Coleman said, in hindsight, he regretted being lenient on Redden and wrote a letter to the Mississippi Parole Board opposing his early release.
“I did write a strong letter opposing the parole,” Coleman said. “There’s been a change in the law…this type of crime would now be considered a crime of violence and he would be required to serve at least half of his sentence and I feel like under the circumstances of his case, being given the opportunity that he was to correct his life and not taking advantage of it, I didn’t feel like he ought to be paroled.”
During his time campaigning, Coleman said he has received an enormous amount of support from the legal community.
Montgomery said she too has received community support, both in Columbus and Clay County where she now resides. A Columbus home in Montgomery’s name was foreclosed on in August according to court records. Montgomery, who has half a million dollars worth of federal tax liens, said she saw the impending foreclosure as an opportunity to move to Clay County and run for the seat.
Other Tuesday races
Voters will also cast ballots for seats in the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House of Representatives and in a special election to fill the last year of Terry Brown’s unexpired state Senate term in District 17.
Polls are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday.
Sarah Fowler covered crime, education and community related events for The Dispatch.
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