Whitley courts begin first video arraignments

Whitley County’s first video arraignments in district court didn’t go off without a hitch Tuesday morning, but court officials say they are pleased with how things went, and of the money the county saved by not having to transport the prisoners back to Williamsburg.
In Corbin’s district courtroom, Judge Cathy Prewitt arraigned about 12 Whitley County inmates, who are being housed in the Clay County Detention Center, via the county’s new video arraignment system, and of that group she had three or four defendants that entered guilty pleas, and will be released from custody today.
“It went real well. We had a couple of technical difficulties, but we are working through them. It saved the county some money,” Prewitt noted.
She said most of the inmates arraigned Tuesday morning were charged with felonies, and that she set bonds for them, and scheduled preliminary hearings for next week.
Prewitt said she probably wouldn’t order that these defendants be transported for court next week for the hearings.
She said attorneys for the defendants could waive their presence, and agree to conduct the preliminary hearings via the video conferencing system. If the attorneys don’t agree to waive the arraignment, Prewitt said she would order the defendants transferred back to Whitley County the following week for the preliminary hearings.
Circuit Court Clerk Gary Barton said there was a slight time delay that took people on both ends a little while to get used too, but other than that he was pleased with how things went.
“It went very well. We have a couple of little technical glitches that we are going to have to work out,” Barton said. “I have a monitor that isn’t working, and it cut out a couple of times. We have a call in to Frankfort for the technical staff to come down and check it out for us, but all and all it went well.”
With the closure of the Whitley County Jail nearly two weeks ago, Barton said his office has been kept busy with trying to keep track of where the prisoners were taken, and of getting the paperwork for defendants.
Prior to the jail’s closure, most of the time the paperwork, such as arrest warrants and citations, was left at the jail by police officers, and the jail staff would bring it to the clerk’s office.
“Now copies are being dropped at other jails, and are having to be mailed to us. It is much more difficult,” he noted. “We have lists of where everybody is, what they are charged with, and what their case numbers are. We set up a program the other day on the computer to follow where the person is and what the dates are.”
Barton said there are currently about 70 Whitley County inmates incarcerated at seven detention centers across the state from Owensboro to Bullitt County. Four of the seven jails currently have video arraignment systems that are compatible with Whitley County, and a fifth jail could be video compatible soon.
“We are one of the early ones on this,” Barton noted. “It is not statewide. It is a fairly new system.”
Barton said the first video arraignments in Williamsburg would be conducted Wednesday morning in front of Judge Dan Ballou.
Court officials had hoped to use the video arraignment system Monday afternoon to arraign some Whitley County prisoners in Clay County, but that plan got scrapped because the room at the Clay County Detention Center, which is used for the video arraignments, was being utilized at that time for a church service.
“The problem we get being in other jails is that we have to work a little bit around their schedule because they use it also. We are going to try and do ours early, and get ours finished before they need to use it,” Barton noted.
Barton noted that the county saved a great deal of money by not having to transport 12 inmates to court Tuesday.
“It saved time. We were able to just sit there on the bench and do it without any problems,” Barton noted. “We took away security problems because they never left the jail. It took away transportation problems, so yes, I am real pleased with it.”
State officials completed the final equipment hook ups in Williamsburg last week for the video arraignment system.
Barton said the district courtroom in Corbin had already been hooked up, but that state officials had to update Corbin’s system to include information on some of the jails where Whitley County prisoners were being held.
Barton said that most of the time when someone is arrested, their cases aren’t resolved during arraignment in district court.
“Those are usually offenses where we need the county attorney, or they need their own attorneys to represent them also. We have a trial date where those cases are set for,” Barton noted.