Since June 18, the Muscogee County court system has been in a state of disarray and flux because of flooding in the Columbus Government Center that has rendered more than half of the main courtrooms unusable and forced some judges to be moved out of their offices and into an office building a couple of blocks away.
Criminal trials are being held in the remaining Government Center courtrooms, while many criminal hearings are being held in the courtrooms adjacent to the Muscogee County jail.
Some civil proceedings, including divorce trials and child custody hearings are being delayed or moved to makeshift courtrooms in the Government Center or the courthouse in neighboring Harris County. A recent civil trial in front of Superior Court Judge Bill Rumer was held in a meeting room inside the Columbus Convention & Trade Center that was converted into a temporary courtroom.
The frustration became evident last week when State Court Judge Andy Prather posted his civil docket call notice on the city’s website. Judges are required by law to give a location for that docket call, where attorneys announce if their cases are ready for trial or they are seeking delays.
“Docket call right now is scheduled for the tailgate of my pickup truck, parking space #34 on the ground level of the Columbus Consolidated Government Center,” Prather posted. “... Hopefully, those in charge of allocating scarce courtroom space will be able to provide us with a climate controlled area before Sept. 26 and you will emailed with the updated location.”
Asked why he sent out the notice in that manner, Prather was blunt.
“I am required by state law to provide a location,” he said. “That’s the only location I know for certain I can hold that docket call.”
City Manager Isaiah Hugley said that his office is working to get the space usable, but it is a difficult situation.
“Certainly, I can understand their frustration,” Hugley said. “There’s frustration with a lot of us. We are dealing with an old building and we are dealing with situations with various systems within an old building. We are limited in our control. When you have a situation you can’t plan and you don’t know what’s going to happen or when it will happen, it’s going to create a level of frustration.”
‘Our two largest courtrooms are knocked out of commission’
Last week, Chattahoochee Judicial Circuit Chief Superior Court Judge Gil McBride, one of the judges forced to move out of his office, sat for an interview in his old 11th floor courtroom, which has no carpet and chairs that are stacked up in the jury box. The lights work but there has been no repair work done to the area since the June 18 flood that began when a water main busted in the area above his courtroom. The city is still negotiating its insurance claim and settlement with Travelers, City Manager Isaiah Hugley said last week.
McBride’s courtroom is usually one of the busiest in the Government Center, and now it’s a constant reminder of the challenges that he and the rest of the court officials face.
“Our two largest courtrooms are knocked out of commission,” McBride said.
Between 7,500 to 10,000 criminal, civil and domestic cases move through the Muscogee County court system, McBride said. The bulk of that work is handled in seven Government Center courtrooms, five belonging to Superior Court judges and two occupied by State Court judges., The Government Center flooding issues have made four of those courtrooms capable of handing jury trials unusable.
“We are using the old city council chambers on the plaza level, but it’s quite noisy when a train comes by and there’s no sound system in that room and there’s quite an echo,” McBride said. “That is not a suitable location for a jury trial it also lacks the security, such as a jail elevator and a holding cell that you would use to try criminal cases. We have mainly used it for non-jury matters.”
Daunting task
The bulk of the scheduling work is falling on McBride and his administrative assistant. In addition to moving cases around the available courtrooms in Columbus, they are also setting the 2019 court calendar for the remaining five counties in the circuit. It’s a daunting task, McBride said.
“We have a carefully structured, choreographed and scripted schedule and my secretary spends much of her time keeping track of that, not only for Superior Courts, but because if affects State Court as well, she works closely with the State Court judges, the Muscogee County Sheriff’s Office. But are constantly in flux and things are constantly changing.”
The challenge continues to grow, McBride said.
“It was a challenge when we had seven judges dealing with five courtrooms, but with seven Superior Court judges sharing two and two very busy State Court judges sharing one, the bottom line is it’s resulted in a backlog,” McBride said.
The lack of courtrooms is an issue that will not get any better until additional courtroom space comes on line, Prather said.
“Judge McBride’s secretary does an incredible job scheduling and she used all seven courtrooms, even before the flooding problems,” Prather said. “The courtroom I am assigned is the same size and Judge McBride’s and quite often a Superior Court judge needs that sized courtroom. Judge (Ben) Land and Judge (Maureen) Gottfried don’t have courtrooms assigned to them and they are up here frequently because it’s the biggest courtroom. The loss of the courtroom assigned to me affects Superior Court as much it does or more.”
McBride pointed to a recent domestic hearing that was scheduled for October, but had to be rescheduled.
“The earliest date we could get was mid-December,” McBride said.
And these delays are impacting divorce cases and child custody hearings, McBride said.
“We are getting to the criminal matters best we can,” McBride said. “But imagine if you have to tell someone they have to wait two months or more for a child custody hearing. That can be devastating, especially for a child.”
More than courtrooms affected
It is not just the judges. There has been flooding in the district attorney’s office and the State Court solicitor’s office. Solicitor General Suzanne Goddard has the nearly 20 people working in her ninth-floor office spread out in three offices in three buildings. Goddard’s office prosecutes misdemeanor cases in State Court, including DUIs.
“During the flood, the first part of our office was under water.” Goddard said. “We had files on fling cabinets and the tops of desks that were completely saturated. The first time we had to do was salvage them just to get the names off them. All of our file cabinets were sitting in water.”
It’s a daily grind, Goddard said.
“The problem that causes is we have a huge volume of cases and we roll them in actual carts to court,” Goddard said. “They’re heavy. We don’t know until a week or two in advance where we are going to be in court. We have been in the old city council chambers. We have been in the old tag office. So, we have to carry carts of cases down stairs and get ‘em to the place. We have to take our copier with us.”
This impacts the public and attorneys representing people charged in State Court, Goddard said.
“If somebody calls me about a case, I have figure out where it is and I have to either walk to the East Wing to get it or the West Wing,” Goddard said. “Attorneys have their own case files and there are hundreds and hundreds of cases. You have to find it and walk over and get it. I don’t know how we are managing it, but we are.”
What McBride wants now most from the city is updates about the progress and the situation.
Mayor Teresa Tomlinson sent McBride a letter on Friday, accepting his offer for her and the city manager to attend the monthly judges meeting in September. The mayor pointed McBride to the presentation made to Columbus Council Tuesday by Director of Insections and Codes John Hudgison.
“Just give us information, and even if it’s not good we can live with it,” McBride said. “I know there there are short-term proposals and long-term proposals being made. What I would like to see in the short term is these courtrooms fix so we can get the courts back to normal.”
This story was originally published September 04, 2018 12:00 AM.