The Senate just confirmed Mississippi’s first Solicitor General Kristi Johnson to become a federal judge for Mississippi’s Southern District. The United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi is in the Fifth Circuit with offices in Gulfport, Hattiesburg, Natchez, and Jackson.
“This is a significant day for Mississippi as Kristi makes history for the second time this year,” said Attorney General Lynn Fitch. “I am so proud to have appointed Kristi Johnson to serve as Mississippi’s first Solicitor General. She has made tremendous contributions to this Office and brought our appellate advocacy to new heights. I am confident she will represent Mississippi well in her new role as Mississippi’s first female federal judge for the Southern District.”
U.S. Senators Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., today hailed Senate confirmation of Kristi H. Johnson of Brandon to serve as a U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of Mississippi. Johnson, who will be the first female jurist for the Southern District of Mississippi, is a native of Hurley and served most recently as the first Solicitor General of Mississippi.
“Kristi Johnson’s confirmation is good news for Mississippi and the United States as a whole,” Wicker said. “She has a unique record of accomplishment as a public servant, a private attorney, a scholar, and a professor. She will make a great judge, and I know Mississippians will join me in congratulating her on this accomplishment.”
“I am thrilled the Senate has confirmed Kristi Johnson to be a U.S. District Judge. She is well-prepared and well-equipped to take her seat on the federal bench, and I’m proud she is making history to be the first woman judge to serve in the Southern District,” Hyde-Smith said. “I am confident that she will serve Mississippi and our nation with distinction as she upholds the Constitution and the rule of law.”
Johnson is the 223rd federal judge to be confirmed to a lifetime appointment by the Senate since President Donald J. Trump took office in January 2017.
Johnson earned an undergraduate degree from the University of Mississippi and a law degree from Mississippi College, where she graduated summa cum laude and served as executive editor of the Mississippi College Law Review. She served as a law clerk for the Honorable Sharion Aycock with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi and for the Honorable Leslie H. Southwick with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Johnson has also served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of Mississippi, an adjunct professor at Mississippi College, and as Treasurer and Secretary of the Mississippi Chapter of the Federal Bar Association.
Press Release
11/17/2020
