by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
The county’s courts are operating in an unsecure environment and the only solution is a new courthouse, says the chief judge and the chief security officer.
Chief Circuit Judge Donald Moran said the current courthouse, which was built in 1956, designed to handle modern security threats. The building is too small, forcing criminal cases into courtrooms without security, he said.
“I guess what we have is courthouse insecurity,” said Moran. “A lot of these courtrooms weren’t designed for criminal cases.”
JSO Assistant Chief Randy Hammond is in charge of security at the courthouse. He agrees with Moran’s assessment about the security challenges presented by the building.
The importance of courthouse security has been highlighted recently by the March 11 killings of a judge, a court reporter, a sheriff’s deputy and a federal customs agent at Atlanta’s Fulton County Courthouse. Moran said that incident got everyone’s attention, but said the security shortcomings of the current building have been a preoccupation for years.
The Atlanta killings happened after a rape defendant overpowered his escort, a lone female officer. Moran doesn’t worry about a similar situation here, detainees are never escorted by a single officer, according to the Jacksonville Sheriffs Office, which runs security at the courthouse. The problems at the current building are a result of infrastructure not manpower, said Moran.
“Anybody that walks around the courthouse can see that the JSO does the best job they can,” said Moran. “The problem is a lack of infrastructure.”
For instance, those criminal cases tried in courtrooms designed for civil proceedings force detainees to be led through halls crowded with citizens. Ideally, criminal defendants would enter and exit the courtrooms through secure hallways so they don’t mingle with the public, said Moran.
The current courthouse also lacks security cameras and other technology that would allow the JSO to make more efficient use of its court officers.
“If you have the infrastructure in place and make use of the technology that’s available today, it takes less manpower and costs less money to keep a courthouse secure,” said Moran.
“It’s fair to say the building isn’t adequate for today’s
cases,” said Hammond. “We try to compensate with manpower, but it’s not a foolproof method.”
Hammond said funding has never been an issue. He gets what he needs from the JSO budget and said Sheriff John Rutherford has made courthouse security a priority since taking office in 2003.
Rutherford has been filling vacancies on Hammond’s staff with full-time JSO officers. The court officers are often part-timers or officers at the beginning or ends of their careers. But Hammond said Rutherford has recently committed to create full-time positions at the courthouse complete with benefits and pensions.
Moran is counting on the design for the new County Courthouse to bring the security infrastructure up to the standards of its manpower. He said he doesn’t care what the new building looks like, but that it must be “safe, secure, durable and functional,” before he’ll sign off
on it.
Security became the focal point as Moran and Mayor John Peyton haggled last year over the new building’s design. As Peyton cut millions from the project’s runaway budget, Moran worried publicly that the cuts might hurt the new building’s security.
Peyton eventually scrapped that design and is now looking for a new one. Moran said he’ll be engaged as the new design progresses to ensure security is adequate.
As the City searches for an answer to its courthouse budget problems, employees at the current building continue to work in a building that’s not as secure as it should be, said Moran. Courthouses present a special security challenge because of the volatile mix of people they bring together, he said.
“The court system is an adversarial system by nature. We’re giving people a controlled, professional environment for people to resolve their conflicts,” said Moran. “They’re bringing their conflicts in here so they don’t shoot each other in the street.”
On any given day the courthouse brings together under one roof: criminals, families that are breaking apart, opponents in lawsuits and the mentally ill. It’s often assumed that criminal cases present the most security problems, but Moran said people forget that every mental health proceeding takes place at the County Courthouse.
Moran was ruling on one such case three years ago when a mentally ill man attacked him. The man thought his mother had been insulted during Moran’s questioning and rushed the bench. Officers subdued him, but Moran said it still serves as a reminder to him that threats can come from anywhere.
Divorce cases and child custody cases, in particular, present a dangerous set of circumstances. Those cases are usually contentious with a lot of stress on both sides, said Moran. They’re often tried in courtrooms without security.
“Divorces are very stressful, especially when children are involved. You’re talking four people in a courtroom and suddenly they’re all fighting,” said Moran.
Moran looks forward to the day when he presides over a building capable of providing the secure environment that he said is essential for the administration of justice.
In the last 50 years the local population has grown from 200,000 to more than a million and the rate crime, divorce and civil suits have grown with it.
The only thing that’s remained the same size, said Moran, is his courthouse.