Cotesworth P. Smith

Cotesworth Pinckney Smith (1807 – November 11, 1862) was an associate justice of the Supreme Court of Mississippi from 1832 to 1838, and again in 1840, and was chief justice from 1849 to 1861, returning to Associate Justice status from then until his death in 1862.

Early life, education, and career A native of South Carolina, Smith came in his boyhood to the portion of the Mississippi Territory that would later become Wilkinson County, and "received a meager education, but, being endowed with fine natural talents, and possessed of much energy and ambition, turned his attention to the law and made rapid progress". where he served as chairman of the Committee on Internal Improvements and "performed an active and laborious part in that body". Smith then returned to the practice of law, where "with a riper experience, and with his talents invigorated by the wide scope of their exercise upon the bench, Smith stood among the most prominent of the Mississippi bar". Unlike Quitman, Smith traveled to New Orleans in November 1850, where the trial was to be held, to answer the charges in person. The trial lasted for several months, culminating in the dismissal of charges for lack of evidence in the spring of 1851.

Following Smith's death in 1862, David W. Hurst of Amite county was in October, 1863, elected to fill the unexpired term, but the courts were then closed due to the American Civil War, and Hurst's occupancy of the bench was merely nominal.