The Sheriff’s View #31 for the week of July 26 through 30, 2010.
Welcome aboard one more time for a very hot trip around Pulaski County with the deputies of the Pulaski County Sheriff’s Office. Or at least a report from the deputies that are still here to do our work. We are down on our deputy numbers at this time. We recently had a deputy resign and we have not yet hired his replacement. Then we had Uncle Sam grab one of our deputies for an extended twelve week trip to another country with his National Guard unit. So we are down to only ten deputies at this time.
The good news is that our reserves are reporting in to work and help us cover the slack time. Our reserve deputies have put in a lot of hours lately and more hours are planned for the future. As an example we had four reserve deputies come in on Friday to conduct a special I-44 drug interdiction effort. We had DEA agents standing by here in the county in case we got lucky. We had planned to go for twelve hours but the heavy traffic count along with the high heat caused us to cancel early. We only covered eight hours in total time and I only got to work about three hours of the operation due to other job tasks that came first before I could play in traffic.
Since we were using only unmarked vehicles the heavy traffic count put a strain on deputy and motorist safety issues. And the high heat sapped the deputies who were wearing vests. The operation netted a small handful of warnings and no citations. We also found no drugs during the effort. I hesitate to say we struck out because the operation did give us some tips in setting up such an operation for the future and we also had a chance to share the latest training information on drug interdiction. But the ultimate objective of the day (find drugs) was not accomplished so I guess we did strike out on Friday. But we will be back in the future.
I recently had a reader ask me what the idea was behind a circuit court preliminary hearing. It would be more accurate to say associate circuit court preliminary hearing. In such a hearing the state must present testimony and facts that will lead the associate circuit Judge to conclude that sufficient facts were presented in the hearing to show that the elements of the crime charged were present in the case and there were reasonable grounds to believe that the defendant may have committed the crime. At that point the Judge “binds” or transfers the case over to the “full” or senior circuit court. The only purpose of the preliminary hearing is to determine that the crime charged was in fact a crime and the defendant may well have committed the crime. As a normal rule an experienced prosecutor only puts on sufficient testimony and facts to satisfy those two findings.
Once the judicial process starts in the higher level circuit court the defendant is placed in a position where “jeopardy” attaches to the case. In other words the defendant may be subjected to punishment of fine, prison time or even a death penalty if the jury finds him guilty in the trial. In this hearing the state is required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty. So the state will usually present the full range of testimony and other evidence to give the jury the “complete” picture of the crime. Once the trial has concluded the judicial process the defendant is subjected to the punishment if found guilty and if found innocent he is free to write a book about how he beat the system if he wants to because he cannot be retried for the same crime again.
Before any legal beagles out there in reader land object to the way I wrote this please remember that I was trying to paint a picture of the process for those who do not understand the legal system. I realize I did not use the correct legal terms in some places but I was going for understanding and not technical accuracy.
There has been the usual summer jump in our jail numbers. As you may recall for the longest time this spring we were down in the mid forty numbers on the daily inmate count. On Saturday the 24th our inmate roster had seventy names. That means roughly 28 here in Waynesville and 42 held elsewhere. Those 42 inmates cost us $1,470.00 just for today. We need to be thankful for the lower totals this spring because if we had those same numbers all year the inmate board bill would have been $536,550 for the year.
Our inmate budget board bill for 2010 was set at $277,000 and as of 6-30-2010 we have already spent $147,769 of that total. We have $129,231 to go for the rest of this year and the inmate numbers have jumped up. Over the past few years this has been typical of the board bill. In 2006 we spent $379,023, in 2007 it was $357,770, in 2008 it was $419,426, and in 2009 it was $276,630.
In order to show more perspective the total bill from 2001 through 2009 was the tidy sum of $2,874,778.00 and if you add the spending so far this year you get $3,022,547.00 which is a nice sum of money to house inmates elsewhere. So to me the question becomes does Pulaski County need a new jail to cut down on the inmate cost elsewhere?
Once again I seem to have hit the end of the rope. I hope that all of you will drive with care and keep your actions legal. I doubt that I must tell you we do not want your jail business but as you know by now the lights are bright if you decide to visit us.
