Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

As docket grows, jail may get courts

Facing likely crime increases and tight courthouse space, county officials debate moving criminal proceedings.

By ABBIE VANSICKLE
Published February 4, 2006

INVERNESS - As Citrus County's population grows, it's likely the county's number of crimes will follow suit.

Increased crime means more criminal defendants, tighter office space for prosecutors and public defenders, and more of a strain on law enforcement to transport inmates from the Citrus County jail in Lecanto to the Citrus County Courthouse in Inverness.

To ease the cramped courthouse and to plan for future growth, county public safety officials are considering moving criminal courts to the jail. At a meeting Friday afternoon, about a dozen officials discussed what such a move might mean.

Commissioner Jim Fowler brought up the idea of changing the criminal court location. Commissioners had discussed moving criminal court proceedings to the jail at their annual goal-setting session Wednesday, he said.

That could mean moving the State Attorney's Office and the Public Defender's Office to the jail, too, he said, since those attorneys handle criminal cases. He added that the jail is already set to be expanded, so why not plan for future growth?

"It's clear that when we built (the courthouse expansion) . . . we built for today rather than the future," he said. "This may be an opportunity for us to do it right."

The change could ease the security burden of transporting inmates to and from court proceedings, said Carlos Melendez, the jail's warden.

Circuit Judge Ric Howard, who handles the felony criminal docket, was optimistic about the idea, but he said he had questions about the plan.

The facility needs to be big enough to handle the judges, lawyers and office space needed for the criminal court operation, he said.

Provided that happened, he said, "I think it would work very well."

He pointed to Pinellas County's criminal court facilities at its county jail and said such a setup would be a good way of handling a growing criminal docket.

But the judge wanted to expand the discussion to include lawyers in private practice. As it stands now, lawyers in private practice can handle civil and criminal cases in the same building. If the criminal part of the court system moved to Lecanto, he said, those lawyers would have to juggle their case loads to be sure they could make all their meetings.

"The defense bar needs to be incorporated into this discussion," he said.

No estimated cost was mentioned at the meeting. But Fowler did say that the benefits of the switch would continue for future generations.

"These buildings may be here for 100 years," he said. "We can do this, and we can do it right."

The prospective move may have implications for the issue of the county seat, a hotly contested battle that raged in 2001 on whether to move the seat from Inverness to Lecanto. If the criminal courts move to the jail, that means a hefty chunk of the courts would be moved to Lecanto.

In 2001, Inverness City Manager Frank DiGiovanni was a vocal opponent of switching the county seat. What impact could the proposed court move have for Inverness?

"We await some official notification," DiGiovanni said. "We would look at the integrity of the county seat . . . and whether this involves a shifting of county functions, i.e., the judiciary, away from the county seat."

Jail officials also discussed the recent problems at the Hernando County jail, assuring other public safety leaders that Citrus County's jail isn't in the same situation.

In recent weeks, three inmates at the Hernando jail have committed suicide. The suicides came as Hernando County commissioners weighed whether to terminate a $10-million contract with the Corrections Corporation of America, or CCA. That company also operates the Citrus jail.

"Do we have the same issues?" Howard asked jail officials at the meeting.

"No," Melendez said. "The jail business is a tough business."

He said he was "very comfortable" with the management of the jail.

"There is a world of difference between Hernando and Citrus (jails)," said County Administrator Richard Wesch.

Abbie VanSickle can be reached at 860-7312 or vansickle@sptimes.com

[Last modified February 4, 2006, 00:32:20]