JACKSON — It’s a new year and another delay in civil proceedings with jailed former circuit clerk Shelly Ashley-Palmertree.

Hinds County Chancery Court Judge Dewayne Thomas on Tuesday continued ongoing litigation between the ex-clerk, Warren County and the Office of the State Auditor another week, at the request of Palmertree’s lawyer. What will be the third round of proceedings in the drawn-out case involving more than $1 million in questionable activity over six years begins anew at 9 a.m.

“We ask the court continue this matter to next Tuesday,” attorney Marc Brand said as a new round of hearings began in the case. “We will be able to discuss matters. As you can see, Miss Palmertree is incarcerated, so the matters are difficult.”

Brand didn’t specify in open court what those matters were as he flanked Palmertree, who was taken into court handcuffed and wearing a brown smock and brown eyeglasses. She is serving a five-year prison sentence in the Central Mississippi Satellite Facility for women in Flowood for embezzling $12,000 from her office’s civil and criminal accounts in 2012. She faces more criminal charges this April after an indictment in October that alleges she embezzled $100,000 from her office’s restitution fund in 2013 and early ’14. She was removed from office last May by county supervisors after OSA investigators turned up evidence she had declared residence in Canton in 2013.

Attorneys for State Auditor Stacey Pickering and CNA Surety, the company that had insured Palmertree and other public officials prior to her legal troubles, had no problem with delaying the case. Marcie Southerland, attorney for Warren County in the case, differed.

“Warren County strongly objects,” Southerland told Thomas in a brief open session of court following a lawyers’ conference in the judge’s chambers. “We’ve continued to go forward and are ready to get going this morning.”

“If y’all come to a settlement without me having to write an opinion on this, I would appreciate it,” Thomas said before adjourning court.

Filed by Palmertree against the county and Pickering in March 2013, the case’s central issue is whether she owes the county $671,751.75 in excessive salary above the state-set cap for circuit and chancery clerks and questionable subcontractor payments to her father and predecessor in office, Larry Ashley. The amounts cover activity from 2006 through 2011. The state and county countersued and contend the payments were improper. The state and county amended their complaint to include payments in 2012 deemed improper, bringing the total claim to more than $1.04 million.

Court-ordered mediation talks after the first three-day run of testimony in December 2013 broke down a month later, reportedly due to the bonding company’s hesitance to cover any of the debts. Three more days of testimony in April 2014 included an expert accounting witness for the clerk and current and former investigators with the auditor’s office before Thomas continued the case to this month.

Southerland and lawyers for the state amended their complaint to include payments in 2012 deemed improper, bringing the total claim to more than $1.04 million.

Documents filed Monday in court showed the surety company answered the state and county’s claims it has liability in the case, a point officials for the latter have contended publicly is the firm’s obligation. The lone additional subpoena since the last round of testimony was also filed Monday, to Vicksburg insurance agent John Hennessey.

Palmertree was ordered by Thomas to appear in court all eight days the Hinds chancery bench has allotted for the case. The dates were Jan. 6-8, 13-15 and Feb. 23-24.