Routine resetting of cases no longer allowed

by Frank Cagle

At any given time 25 to 30 percent of the inmates in the Knox County jail are people arrested for misdemeanors and awaiting trial. This matters because not only is tax money providing them room and board and health care; the chronic threat of jail overcrowding may lead a federal judge to order the building of a new jail pod, if not a new jail.

Why is it that the Knox County jail holds an average of 200 people awaiting trial for petty offenses, when Davidson County (half again as large as Knox) generally has a population of 70 to 80 prisoners in this category?

The current jail population in Knox County is about 800. Spot checking misdemeanor prisoners awaiting trial: Aug. 20 (197). Sept. 17 (231). Oct. 15 (239). These defendants are usually indigent and either can’t or don’t choose to make bond. Once the case is decided, the sentence is often a fine or time served, so they are then out of the jail.

The bottleneck has been identified as Sessions Court, where these petty crimes are adjudicated. U.S. District Court Judge James Jarvis has been very publicly on the case of County Mayor Mike Ragsdale, District Attorney Randy Nichols and Sheriff Tim Hutchison to solve the problem of jail overcrowding. Recently, Jarvis has turned his attention to the efficiency of Sessions Court.

A study reveals that there have been no clear guidelines on when a case should be reset (delayed). Sessions Court has been notorious for resetting cases over and over. Hutchison, in an op-ed piece in the News Sentinel last week, defended the Sessions judges and laid blame for delays on the defense bar. That’s one way to look at it. But the judges are supposed to be in charge of their courtrooms. Who grants the motions? Who allows the situation to continue?

Jarvis’ attention has led the five Sessions Court judges (Chuck Cerny, Geoffrey Emery, Bob McGee, Brenda Waggoner and Tony Stansberry) to issue new guidelines to the defense bar that take effect Jan 1. Defense attorneys are on notice that cases will be disposed of more promptly and routine motions to reset will not be granted. (“I haven’t had time to talk to my client” is no longer a good reason.) The new goals are to dispose of 80 percent of cases by the second appearance of a defendant and 100 percent of the cases by the third setting.

In fairness, a Sessions judge tells me the numbers on petty crimes awaiting trial may be skewed because the supposed misdemeanor violator may have committed another crime. The judge also says getting more efficiency out of the courts depends on things out of the judges’ control. Like getting results from the understaffed crime lab, coordinating appearances by prosecutors and defense attorneys and with witnesses (usually cops) who have only a few days available to appear.

But what is clear is that we have had a jail overcrowding problem for years, and up until now no one seems to have paid much attention to getting more efficiency out of the court system. With five judges you would think they would keep the courtrooms busy all day, every day, until the problem is solved. The judges do stay on the bench every day until the docket is complete. But observers say that is usually by 2 p.m. (If everybody skips lunch.) The court system does not have an administrator to assign cases to judges and do scheduling. The judges do it themselves.

Most defendants in Sessions Court are represented by public defenders. Mark Stephens, head of the office, says talk about efficiency is premature as long as he has 20 lawyers for 20,000 cases. He says his analysis shows defense motions to reset are much lower than those being cited by others.

We appear to have a situation in which, because of overcrowding, we are putting more and more convicted felons back on the street on probation. Meanwhile, petty criminals charged with misdemeanors are taking up jail space waiting for trial.

Do you see anything wrong with this picture?

Should there be an independent court administrator who doesn’t answer to judges to make sure dockets are full and some jail cells are empty? Should the salary of public defenders and prosecutors be tied to disposing of cases? Is it false economy to have understaffed labs causing bottlenecks in drug and alcohol cases, when the result is taxpayers paying to keep suspects in jail, or spending money to build a new jail?

It is a complex machine, full of moving parts, and the only person who seems to be in charge is a federal judge. But there is nothing like the attention of a federal judge to focus the mind.

Frank Cagle is the host of Sound Off on WIVK FM107.7, WNOX AM990, FM99.1 and FM99.3 each Sunday 8-9:30 a.m.

December 9, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 50 © 2004 Metro Pulse