Punishment undecided for bailiff who forgot prisoner in holding cell

Whitley County Sheriff Colan Harrell has implemented new procedures at the Whitley County Judicial Center to ensure that no prisoners are accidently left over night in the facility again, like the one last week.

Harrell said there is now a physical form court security officers have to fill out checking off that no one is still in each room of the facility before it is closed and locked up for the day.

The new procedure immediately went into effect after last week’s incident.

James Thomas Adkins, 41, appeared in Whitley District Court on the afternoon of July 3 for failure to pay fines and failing to appear in court, and had been returned to the 10’ x 10’ holding cell to await transfer back to the Whitley County Detention Center.

The court security officer responsible for inmate transport became distracted with another individual, who was threatening to commit suicide. Upon resolving that situation, the officer failed to check the holding cells before leaving the facility, Harrell said.

A pretrial release officer found Adkins about 9 a.m. on July 4 and he was taken back to the detention center. He was released from jail Friday.

When asked about disciplinary action regarding the court security officer, who left Adkins in the cell, Harrell said, “we’ve not determined the action we are going to take.”

Harrell said the officer, whom he didn’t identify, is still working serving subpoenas, but is not currently working in the judicial center.

On July 5, the sheriff’s department ran an advertisement on its Facebook page accepting applications for the position of part-time court security officer.

Harrell said that the advertisement is unrelated to last week’s incident, and that he actually has three or four part-time vacancies he needs to fill at the judicial center if anyone is interested.

Interested applicants can call the sheriff’s department at 549-6006 for more details or log onto the department’s Facebook page.

At the time of the incident last week, Adkins was a prisoner at the Whitley County Detention Center.

When asked about why Adkins’ absence wasn’t picked up by a head count at the jail on the evening of July 3 or morning of July 4, Whitley County Jailer Brian Lawson explained that anytime an inmate is taken to the judicial center, there is a transfer of custody to the sheriff’s department or court bailiffs.

“We were told the bailiffs were going to take care of it,” Lawson said of Adkins still being in court late on the afternoon of July 3. “As far as from the jail’s standpoint, we didn’t know if he had been released from custody there, sent to another facility or sent to rehab. We were under the assumption that the sheriff’s office had taken custody. He was booked out of our system pretty much.”