Judge Carlton W. Reeves receives MBA’s Judicial Excellence Award

JANS – Judge Carlton W. Reeves of Jackson has been honored as the Mississippi Bar’s Judicial Excellence Award recipient for 2025.

The Bar’s Board of Commissioners established the Judicial Excellence Award to recognize judges who exceed the call of their judicial office. Recipients are considered to exemplify judicial excellence and the possession of high ideals, character, and integrity.

Judge Reeves assumed office as a U.S. District Judge in 2010 after nomination by President Barack Obama and confirmation by the U.S. Senate. In 2022, President Joe Biden nominated him to chair the U.S. Sentencing Commission and he was also confirmed to that position.

Judge Reeves earned a bachelor’s degree from Jackson State University, magna cum laude, and earned his Juris Doctorate from the University of Virginia School of Law.

After law school graduation, Judge Reeves served as a clerk to Justice Reuben V. Anderson of the Mississippi Supreme Court and served as staff attorney to the court. Judge Reeves was then an associate with Phelps Dunbar before serving as Assistant U.S. Attorney, Chief of the Civil Division for the Southern District of Mississippi. Prior to his judicial nomination, Judge Reeves was engaged in the private practice of law with Pigott Reeves Johnson, P.A., a firm he co-founded in 2001.

In 2024, Judge Reeves was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Human Letters from Hunter College. He is the 2019 recipient of the University of Virginia’s highest honor – the Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal in Law. Judge Reeves earned the Golden Pen Award from the Legal Writing Institute in 2021. He was also recognized with the Distinguished Jurist Award from the Mississippi State University Department of Political Science and Public Administration in 2016. The Mississippi Volunteer Lawyers Project honored Judge Reeves with the Curtis E. Coker Access to Justice Award in 2003.

Judge Reeves has served on the Board of Bar Commissioners. He is a past president of the Magnolia Bar Association, and the Magnolia Bar Foundation, having three times received the R. Jess Brown Award, the Magnolia Bar’s highest honor.

Judge Reeves and his (late) wife, Lora, have one daughter, Chanda.