Court workers face new misery
Building closed by Harvey won’t be able to reopen for up to 2 years
Houston’s once bustling 20-story downtown criminal courthouse, the critical hub of Harris County’s criminal justice system, will likely remain closed because of flood damage from Hurricane Harvey until late 2019 or early 2020, Precinct 3 Commissioner Steve Radack said Thursday.
The disclosure dismayed courthouse insiders who called the situation an unworkable system, as abbreviated court dockets are being conducted in makeshift courtrooms in the basement of the jail while people who are free on bail are being rushed to trial.
It also means that hundreds of courthouse staffers, including lawyers and investigators with the district attorney’s office, will continue their long slog of working in crowded quarters in satellite offices around the county while the building is renovated.
“Obviously a lot of
people have been displaced and that’s a major problem and we want them back in as soon as possible,” Radack said, after a meeting of county officials. “But this is an opportunity to make the necessary repairs and make some major improvements, such as in the elevator systems, as well as make more room and relocate a lot of our mechanical equipment to a different level.”
Radack estimated that repairs and renovations, which have yet to be estimated, planned or contracted for, will be complete in 18 months to two years.
That means the county’s 22 felony judges and 16 misdemeanor judges will have to continue holding dockets in the basement of the Harris County jail for incarcerated inmates. It also means the hundreds of prosecutors and staffers at the state’s largest prosecutor’s office will remain in 11 offices scattered though downtown and as far away as the Galleria.
‘Harvey deals’
The restrictions on court time and office space have resulted in a windfall for suspects who have been able to cut advantageous plea bargains, known around the courthouse as “Harvey deals,” especially for low-level nonviolent drug cases.
Defense lawyers said other defendants, especially those who remain in jail, are getting overlooked in the system since they are in jail and secure courtrooms are scarce.
After the storm, the criminal courts, which had holding cells, were closed, and those judges doubled up in courtrooms in the 17-story civil courthouse, which does not have holding cells. With a lack of holding cells, judges can only try cases in which the suspect is free on bail.
“The ones who are in jail are the ones who are suffering the most because their stay there is being unnecessarily prolonged, but it affects everyone because the trial schedules are completely off-balance with bond cases being rushed to trial,” said Carmen Roe, a former president of the Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association. “We’ve all learned, in pretty short order, that the system doesn’t work and to think that we could endure this for another two years in unimaginable.”
Radack and other county officials spoke after a consultant from PGAL, the architectural firm hired to estimate the scope of work for the shuttered skyscraper, gave members of the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council a cursory update about the process the firm is undertaking to assess the damage and estimate costs for repairs and renovations.
Cheryl Gajeske, an architect at PGAL, said the firm hopes to submit initial cost estimates around March 1 for several options for construction.
“We’ll be putting together a cost estimate for each option,” she told the county leaders and emphasized that March 1 is not a hard deadline, but a general target. “Some of the areas of focus are the lobby and security functions that may need a better space. She also said they are weighing options to make it easier for people to move to upper floors during peak times.
Strained before storm
The 18-year-old building, a block away from Buffalo Bayou at 1201 Franklin, was built to hold 40 courtrooms and several county offices, including the district attorneys office and the probation department.
For years before the storm, the building space was strained every weekday morning as thousands of people, including county employees, suspects in pending cases and their family members packed elevators to make it to morning docket calls.
Long lines sometimes snaked around building as people waited to get in. Often, the lines were stopped at the metal detectors to slow the flow of people packing into elevators to reach courtrooms from the 8th floor to the 20th.
Critics of the building have long protested that additional elevators or other renovations could make it easier to get the crush of people to court.
Prosecutors with the district attorneys office were quietly told in December that the timeline for renovating the building would likely be two years, said Chief of Staff Vivian King.
“We’re just going to roll with the punches,” King said. “We understand that it’s a natural disaster, and we’re just going to fight through it.”
Thursday’s update was the first official word from the architecture firm and was delivered to the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council, a county sub-committee that brings more than a dozen office holders and agency heads together every quarter to work on problems facing the criminal justice system.
The council was created almost 10 years ago by the late county commissioner El Franco Lee and others to tackle chronic jail overcrowding and continues to address systemic issues.
250,000 people a month
Radack and Pct. 1 Constable Alan Rosen chair the council, which includes Sheriff Ed Gonzalez and District Attorney Kim Ogg. Rosen heads the agency overseeing security for the county buildings downtown, including the courthouse complex.
“We routinely screen about 250,000 people a month into the county buildings,” he said. “And we use that data to make sure we have a plan as population grows. We have a workgroup that’s been put together to address the security needs for that building and to think ahead for the population growth.”
During Harvey, water pooled around the base of the building, eventually seeping in and disabling water pressure regulators, resulting in burst pipes though out the towering building.
John Blount, the county engineer, has said the consultants are looking for ways to fix the building so another catastrophic flood would close the building for days, not months.
He also said the consultant may propose fixes to ease congestion.