The U.S. Senate has voted to confirm Kristi Johnson as the new U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of Mississippi.
By a 53-43 margin, the chamber confirmed Johnson, who was appointed by President Trump upon the recommendation of Mississippi’s Senate delegation back in March. With today’s action, Johnson becomes the Southern District of Mississippi’s first female jurist.
“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.”
Prior to her nomination to the bench, Johnson served as the state’s first Solicitor General alongside Attorney General Lynn Fitch.
“This is a significant day for Mississippi as Kristi makes history for the second time this year,” Fitch said. “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.”
Johnson, a Brandon native, 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 of 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.
She becomes the 223rd federal judge appointed and confirmed during the Trump Administration.
