Thursday, September 26, 2013

Judges call high noon show down over jail costs


Waco – There's a new Sheriff in town, and the DA isn't making deals.

People accused of serious crimes get no plea bargain offers other than what the statute calls for if convicted by a jury trial.
The Jack Harwell Detention Center, Waco's private jail

Assault? 15 years. Burglary? Same same.

The DA is on record. “You pull a gun on somebody, I guarantee you. We're gonna dance,” he told a Republican Club meeting.

What happens? The accused are less than eager to plead out.

People who can't make bail sit in stir for the obligatory 90 days, and then their court-appointed attorney gets them released on their personal recognizance on a motion for a writ of habeas corpus.

McLennan County found itself in the unenviable position of ranking just slightly behind Rwanda (492) in its rate of incarceration of prisoners per 100,000 population - 480. Even worse, it's just slightly ahead of the Russian Federation, which sees fit to lock up 479 per 100,000 on any given day. That compares with some big, bad towns like Houston's Harris County at 218, Ft. Worth's Tarrant County at 179. True, Waco is behind the south Texas counties of Kenedy at 2,324 and McMullen County at 1,803, which outstrips its population of 851 by a huge percentage. Immigration woes near the Rio Grande can be pesky. No doubt.

Nothing strange about any of this, since the U.S. has an incarceration rate of 716, head and shoulders over Cuba at 510; and Texas locks up 632 per 100,000, in fourth place behind Louisiana at 865 and Mississippi and Alabama at 690 and 650, respectively.

Texas penitentiaries are hard time joints; the temperatures during summer months hover between 100 and 130 degrees, both night and day. Many defendants don't mind doing as much of their time as possible in an air conditioned county lockup near family, friends, and their lawyers.

It's also no surprise that all this is expensive.

As it turns out, the ministerial duty of holding inmates is a constitutional obligation of the Sheriff, acting in concert with what has been aptly described as the world's most benign form of anarchy, a well-tuned Texas Courthouse in the full-blown throes of the status quo. That is Latin for what a Texas Ranger once testified is “the mess we done got ourselves in now.”

When weekends come, the DWI crowd shows up to serve their time behind bars on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights, and the resulting overflow goes next door to a privately operated, publicly financed lockup at the rate of $45.50 per day. In a recent year, that expense exceeded its budgeted allocation of $1 million by 300 percent. This year, it's a line item of $5.4 million, following a recent budget transfer of more than $800,000 in “contingency” funds.

When the Commissioners Court raised the tax rate by 5 cents in an attempt to keep up with the unsustainable financial equation, members of the Tea Party showed up for the second year in a row to say that elected officials had better start finding some solutions - if they like their jobs.

There is a pressure point, a place where there is a remedy to be found, and it's in the chambers of the county's seven judges.

They held two meetings on Wednesday, September 25. The first, at 8 a.m., was to consider budgeting more money to ankle bracelet monitoring for the non-violent offender serving time for minor drug cases and DWI. At $7 a day for the indigent and $8.50 a day for those who have jobs, 88 percent of 239 offenders successfully complied with the terms and conditions of probation. That includes wearing a monitor that can detect the use of drugs and alcohol.

According to an official of the company that furnishes and monitors the bracelets, this practice saved taxpayers an estimated $600,000 during fiscal year 2013.

The judges didn't stop there. They scheduled a high noon meeting to consider a brand new way of disposing of serious cases in a more timely, less expensive way.

Matt Johnson of the 54th District Court acted on a tip from two fellow district judges, Gary Coley, who hears chiefly juvenile cases, and Vicki Menard, who sits on civil matters, and consulted a Midland County judge.

In that west Texas regional banking and finance capital, a twin city to the petroleum production hub of Odessa, the judges acted on the same need and found a successful reduction in jail expenses.

It seems that in the Permian Basin, the Sixth Amendment guarantee of a speedy prosecution applies to the People of the State of Texas, as much as to the accused.

According to Judge Johnson, about 90 accused offenders have languished behind county bars for more than a year. For the record, even more have stalled for many months while on bail. In Midland, local judges found a solution by creating a special docket, one that dictates a final call for balky defendants – no matter what.

In a letter, he told his four fellow District Judges and two County Court-at-Law judges, “Before the date of trial the State and Defense would be given notice of the cases to be placed on this special docket. The cases would be set for a Final Docket Call in which a plea offer, if any, would be placed on the record and if no agreement was reached the case was set for a firm trial date.”

His former law partner, District Attorney Abel Reyna, campaigned on the notion that he would take the fight against crime to the courts, that the main problem would be “finding a court to try the cases.”

No problem, according to Judge Johnson.

On trial days, the 19th (criminal) Court and the 54th (criminal) Court, in full cooperation and with the approval of each judge, could send a felony case to a participating district court and/or County Court-at-Law. That would potentially give us 6 or 7 courts available for trial on selected weeks.”

What about defense attorneys who don't want to go along to get along?

There's a rumor going around. The judges are in charge of who gets appointed to defend which case, and attorneys are bound by ethics laws to act in the best interest of their clients.

It's a small, administrative matter for the Presiding Regional Judge to order judges of County Courts-at-Law or District Judges who typically hear civil cases to sit on criminal cases that have been placed on a special docket by order of the District Judges, according to Judge Johnson's reasoning.

The jury is still out.

The taxpayers and County Commissioners await the results of Judge Johnson's high noon meeting with his fellow jurists.

One may view a video of Tea Party reactions to the historic tax hike required to balance the books as a result of jail overcrowding by clicking here:

13 comments:

  1. No point in having a defense attorney in any pending criminal case. The great DA has chosen to shut out defense lawyers wanting to plea bargain. Since he prides himself on maximum time for offenders just refer to the penal and give 'em all the max. Then the DA will get a chubby and meanwhile the taxpayers get caught holding a stiff one. The challenge for the system is to reserve the badass hard time for the badasses and use available successful alternatives for the noy so badasses.

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  2. Looks like they might be searching for a way to do that. Reyna ran on a campaign platform that criticized his opponent for only prosecuting half the cases charged. "That's like a coin flip," he said. This system would probably lead to a certain amount of venue shopping. You sound like an old pro at all this. Where did you get your experience with chubbies and stiff ones? I didn't know that was in the Code of Criminal Procedure. - The Legendary

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  3. Those r reserved for the ones with "little man complexes" and uncompromising problem creators. But..u r definitely half up the "new sheriff's" ass and drool over the little guy DA so there is no point in trying to be objective on this blog.

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  4. Fool, you wouldn't have the slightest idea what I'm about. You say your name is Anonymous. Wow. What a guy. You don't like this blog, don't be here. It's not like we're on a first-name basis, you foul-talking outfit. - The Legendary

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  5. FYI f.. man..punishment ranges for all levels of crime are in the Penal Code, not the Code of Criminal Procedures, just saying that viable,successful intermediate sanctions have been available to prosecutors since the mid 90s. He was elected because he happened to run on the old "hang 'em" high platform which charges up the voters but they later find out in the real world that they cant afford it..to wit: mclennan county has one of the worst budget crisis than most all other counties in the state. The local jail (s) are sucking money out of the county coffers like bottom feeding catfish. Wow, we now know we have a hardline DA who is just now maybe willing to work with others, how blessed we are..NOT ......by the way the coin flip thing u refer to is nothing but bullshit rhetoric. Thanks for ur time.

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  6. Come back when you're prepared to tell us all what you really think, dude. - The Legendary

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  7. Hahaha..thanks ledg. for blog space however I am right about the county criminal justice status, but i doubt u would ever admit it. It would be ok if u did, just to prove u r objective. Later brother.

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  8. Pre-trial confinement may be obtained at a fraction of the cost - $7 per day for the indigent and $8.50 per day for the employed. Furthermore, though crime clearance rates are tabulated when an arrest occurs, I don't think they are anything but bogus until a righteous conviction is obtained. These cases aren't moving, and it's a monumental problem. The judges are acting to try to straighten out their problem. It's all they can do. I'm just waiting on Tuesday to find out what they decided. Thanks for sharing. - The Legendary

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  9. Pre-trial confinement may be obtained at a fraction of the cost - $7 per day for the indigent and $8.50 per day for the employed. Furthermore, though crime clearance rates are tabulated when an arrest occurs, I don't think they are anything but bogus until a righteous conviction is obtained. These cases aren't moving, and it's a monumental problem. The judges are acting to try to straighten out their problem. It's all they can do. I'm just waiting on Tuesday to find out what they decided. Thanks for sharing. - The Legendary

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  10. Pre-trial confinement may be obtained at a fraction of the cost - $7 per day for the indigent and $8.50 per day for the employed. Furthermore, though crime clearance rates are tabulated when an arrest occurs, I don't think they are anything but bogus until a righteous conviction is obtained. These cases aren't moving, and it's a monumental problem. The judges are acting to try to straighten out their problem. It's all they can do. I'm just waiting on Tuesday to find out what they decided. Thanks for sharing. - The Legendary

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  11. Yeah..they need to move quik and decisive to clear backlogged cases and get the losers quicker hearings..get em out of our hotel and set them on a bus south or dismiss or probation..this has been a continual problem fot at 15 years. Reyna does need to be more open to alternatives since I am sure he can convince voters that raising taxes every year is not realiastic.

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  12. This situation is not the fault of one official or another. It is the fault of the community which elects officials to carry out the collective mission which is the essence of the soul of the community. The soul of this community is hateful and unforgiving.

    These officials were elected to be "tough on crime" above all else. At the risk of encountering criticism and loss of votes they will accomplish the mission they have been given by the community.

    Now these officials have to explain to the community they are doing exactly what the community soul desires, but they will have to pay for what they want. Nobody thought of that part of the equation?

    Probably 80% of all crime is driven by addiction. This community has now elected a sheriff who prides himself in kicking in doors all over town and thinks this will win this war on drugs. What will happen if we remove every stinkin' drug dealer from our community? Dealers from other places will come here in droves to supply the demand of the addicts in this community.

    Other communities, an example is Abilene (roughly half the size of Wacko), have addressed the problem of addiction and there are about 20 sober living houses and halfway houses available for recovering addicts. See if you can find any here. Think about the history of those proposals.

    This is all about the soul of the community and it is not only expensive, but also sinful if you ask me.





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    1. What it is..an intelligent non abrasive..non political DA in Segrest goes up against win at all costs reyna who uses the same ole lock em and throwaway the key political winner cliche. It works everytime everywhere. He now takes the very easy nonchallenging role of being rigid with a non plea philosophy and could care less what it will cost taxpayers. Nothing is less challenging than locking them all up instead of collaborating with the whole system that will both protects the community and addresses the addictive scourge eating away at the populous and most every other low paying, blue collar town. Ur right about the sheriff.

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