Forfeiture funds to pay for security already there

Courts in a war of nerves over screening guards

Waco – McLennan County Sheriff Larry Lynch is sweating the people the Texas Constitution charges him to protect – Judges and jurors involved in criminal and civil litigation.

Documents obtained from McLennan County Commissioners Court and the County Auditor show that the money to pay for jury security screening is there, and was approved on May 8 when the Court approved transferring $50,000 in forfeiture funds.

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In fact, the expenditure of $2,107 in forfeiture funds set the precedent that the Sheriff was willing to pay a shortfall for part time officers from other departments to man the security station at the Visiting Judges' Courtroom at the Courthouse Annex building.

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However, Sheriff Lynch is holding out for some unexplained reason, demanding that the Commissioners pay the $16,000 shortfall in May for part time security guards from a $76,000 account in the County Jail medical budget, rather than the forfeiture funds. The court has deferred two weeks in a row.(click here to read an earlier report)

The result is that starting last Monday, the jurors summoned for duty must wait in line for security screening at the east door of the Courthouse, pass through metal detection equipment, then wait in the rotunda.

From there, employees of the District Clerk's office are required to escort them up to the third floor in the elevator, across the alley to the entrance to the Visiting Judges' Courtroom, which doubles as a jury assembly room until veniremen are dispatched to the specific courtroom where they will eventually serve. 


The confusion has judges and District Clerk Karen Matkin befuddled, since more than $1 million was spent to fix the problem by remodeling the Annex with a place for jurors to assemble and come and go by a reserved entrance.(click here to read an earlier report)

The reason: Sheriff Larry Lynch claims there are no funds to pay part time guards from such agencies as the Hewitt Police Department or from the ranks of his own department, persons who work in the jail or elsewhere in the organization, such as D.A.R.E. Officers.

Why?

As astute an observer as The Legendary Jim Parks may be, he is as yet unable to divine the mental processes of other human beings, be they elected officials, steely-eyed forces of the world of law enforcement, or adept administrators of public policy. It is what it is, y'all.

(click here for the minority report, written by Huddie "Leadbelly" Ledbetter, an outfit who hailed from them old cotton fields back home)