Mike Moser "I Say" Published Oct. 4, 2002

Is justice fair to anyone
facing the system?

Have you been in Criminal Court lately?

If not, you are missing quite a spectacle. I doubt scholars of jurisprudence would be happy with what they would see.

If you have not been through the legal marathon called "docket call," you cannot appreciate why the wheels of justice turn so slowly and why the term "speedy trial" may have been a figment of the imagination of Thomas Jefferson and his cronies as opposed to reality today.

Imagine Monty Hall's "Let's Make a Deal" being combined with the running of the bulls in Spain. Throw in a 98 cents-a-gallon sale at the gas pumps and there you have it. Cumberland County Criminal Court.

Before you get your dander up, hear me out because this is not an indictment against judges or prosecutors or defense attorneys. It is an indictment against the State of Tennessee and our lawmakers for ignoring the fact we are at the brink of judicial crisis.

In short, the state legislature hasn't kept up with the times. And in case you haven't noticed, society is eroding at an inflationary rate.

When I moved to the Plateau and reported for work on Feb. 20, 1984, Judge Jim Bean was holding General Sessions Court for approximately two half-days a week. Sometimes afternoons were occupied with preliminary hearings or bond hearings.

The rest of his week was busy with the civil side of Sessions Court, Juvenile Court, and divorce cases.

Today Judge Steven Douglas holds two long hard days of Sessions Court, Trooper Court on a third day every other week, in addition with his other work load. He even tried night court to shorten the burden but the very folks it was designed to help balked at attending.

Judge Burns was the Criminal Court Judge in 1984. Period. Judge Jerry Maddux had just been appointed to a newly created position, helping take some of the load from the criminal and civil side of the 13th Judicial Circuit.

Judge John Turnbull helps with some criminal cases, although most of his bench work is on the civil side. And Lillie Ann Sells is serving her first term to a newly created bench on the criminal side.

Next month both Judge Burns and Judge Sells are scheduled to hold court on the same day in Cumberland County, something I can not remember happening before.

Most local attorneys stopped taking appointments for indigent defendants when the Public Defender's Office was created. We have two public defenders working Cumberland County, Joe Findley and Cindy Lyons.

Fast forward to today and look at the General Sessions docket published weekly in this paper. Look at the number of misdemeanor cases being waived to action of the grand jury which means they end up on the Criminal Court docket. Public intoxication. Driving on a revoked license. No driver's license. Running stop signs. Speeding. Drunk driving.

This is allowed because state law says anyone facing incarceration has a right to a jury trial. Few of these cases actually reach a jury. What they do achieve is cluttering up an already busy docket.

Now, look again at the number of methamphetamine cases that have suddenly appeared on the docket.

Is it any wonder that the courts are struggling to keep up with the serious crimes that involve bodily injury?

Judges are frustrated because attorneys are not prepared to settle their cases, or seek a trial date, when the cases are called in open court. Truth is, with only two prosecutors and two public defenders, and all this court time, there is little time for attorneys to meet and negotiate.

Those who can afford an attorney get better service and, if you will, maybe a higher form of justice simply because their attorneys are not overworked like the public defender's office is. On any given day, the public defender's office will represent more than the majority of defendants in court.

Cindy Lyons and Joe Fendley are good attorneys. They do their best. Our judges are as good as any on the bench in Tennessee.

But my goodness, we are asking them to do the job as we perceive it should be done against odds that are greater than winning the power ball lottery. The problem is the sheer volume.

And I don't see crime going down anytime soon.

District attorneys across the state are campaigning for additional prosecutors and rightfully so. But that is only a part of the problem.

There are three things the state legislature needs to do next session. It needs to update the antiquated laws that deal with illegal methamphetamine labs and possession, it needs to address this fad of putting the lowest of misdemeanor cases in the same court as murder, rape, drug selling and robbery.

And it needs to fund more positions for the public defender's office and prosecutor's offices. Whether we like it or not, the accused is innocent until proven guilty, and all defendants deserve equal and fair representation. It is unreasonable to expect a public defender to carry 50 case files to one docket call.

As a society, we can pay now, or we will surely pay later.

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Mike Moser is the editor of the Crossville Chronicle. His column is published periodically on Fridays.