Jackson Free Press

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The Mississippi Supreme Court says that once a judge has been ordered from office because of misconduct, that person can never again hold the same judicial post.

The 6-2 ruling came Thursday in the case of Rickey Thompson, a former Lee County Justice Court judge booted from office by justices in 2015. That decision cited multiple instances of wrongdoing and ordered Thompson removed in part because the high court had reprimanded him twice earlier in 2008 and 2012.

At the time, Thompson had won a Democratic primary seeking another term. But party officials removed him from the ballot at the direction of the attorney general.

Thompson had said his removal should only last until the end of his four-year term, and that he should then be allowed to run again.