He practiced civil law in Jackson in the firm of Daniel Coker Horton & Bell[1] before returning to Oxford to serve as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Northern District of Mississippi in 2002.
He was initially appointed to the appeals court by Governor Haley Barbour on February 2, 2009, then elected in 2010 and re-elected in 2014.
[3] In January 2020, Maxwell upheld the 12-year conviction of Willie Nash, an African American man, for having a cell phone while in jail.
Jail officials failed to confiscate Nash's cell phone in the booking process, so he was unaware that he was not allowed to have one.
On review, Maxwell wrote, "While obviously harsh, Nash's twelve-year sentence for possessing a cell phone in a correctional facility is not grossly disproportionate.