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The Mississippi Lawyer Summer 2015 11 the internal deadlines of the Court so that the litigants do not have to wait any longer than necessary and we should be mindful that in todays world especially time is money. Then applying those same principles to fellow judges on the Court you want to be deferential to your colleagues. If the case is assigned to me I want to make sure that I meet deadlines so that my colleagues have the same amount of time that I had to review the case to deliberate and to write. If I am writing a dissent the way I would want to be treated is that I would like one of my colleagues to come talk with me first about the points of con- tention and give me an opportunity to respond. And in the opinion whether I am writ- ing a dissent or a majority opinion I am respectful of my colleagues. I do not say things that are caustic or derogatory. I do not try to bring in things that are not in the record. I do not try to be cute. I do not try to slip in unnecessary phrases. What I like to see when I am reading an opinion is something that is as concise as possible has the facts stated correctly and has the best law. That is the way I would want to be treated that is the way my colleagues want to be treated. In my opinion you can encapsulate appellate judging or really all judging as fair effi- cient and independent. If a judge follows those principles the opinions will be accurate and on time and they will be free from outside influence. That is my judi- cial philosophy. I am not going to say it is different from anyone else. But if judges abuse anything it is time. Litigants have deadlines they have to meet. By contrast some judges feel like the whole world needs to wait until they are ready to do something. That is just not an appropriate view. It is something that I too have to fight against. VLL What do you enjoy most about being a judge WLW I like all of it. As Chief Justice I like the administrative responsibilities working with the Legislature and working on rules changes so we can have the best law. I like reading cases trying to deci- pher the facts and figuring out what the best solution is. VLL What is the hardest part of being a judge WLW The death-penalty cases are just horrendous. When we get a motion from the Attorney General to set an execution it is literally a twenty-four-hour-a-day oper- ation to determine whether the execution will happen. The Attorney General as the prosecutor moves to set the execution and then the Office of Post Conviction Counsel will file a successive petition for post-conviction relief. The petition may literally be a foot thick. You have to get responses and a lot of them are nuanced with expert opinions. And there is high tension. Some say capital punishment is the perfect punishment because it is over it is complete. But on the other hand it is very delicate and sensitive because it is the end and there is no rehearing once that process is over. VLL What are the common mistakes that lawyers make in handling an appeal WLW I would start with the trial. I think that in almost every case you have a situa- tion where an error was not preserved where there was a conference of critical importance that was not transcribed where there was something that was not Continued on next page Interview conducted by Professor Vicki Lowery Mississippi College School of Law