Warrant clinics said to be working well

FAYETTEVILLE — Those involved in organizing Washington County’s second “warrant clinic” — aimed at resolving cases of people facing arrest for failing to appear in court — deemed the effort a success Thursday.

“We were much better organized and prepared this time,” Prosecuting Attorney Matt Durrett said. “We had about 10 people who called ahead and made appointments. We didn’t have that in January. We were able to have their case files here and plea deals ready for them when they arrived.”

The warrant clinic ran from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursday at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church at 224 N. East Ave. A similar clinic was held in January at the same location.

At the January clinic, Durrett said, 20 people with arrest warrants for failure to appear in court accepted plea agreements and another seven people had their cases dismissed. At Thursday’s clinic, he said, there were about 10 cases where plea agreements were reached, five or six that were put back on the circuit courts’ arraignment docket and another four or five restored to the Division VII court docket.

Durrett said he is willing to continue holding the clinics as long as they provide a useful service. He said the goal is to prevent people from being arrested on failure to appear warrants and taking up space in jail. They also lighten the circuit court’s caseload, he said.

The Washington County Detention Center has a design capacity of 710 beds and is considered at operating capacity when 80% of the beds are taken because of legal requirements to separate different classifications

of detainees, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

The jail population was 717 on April 22 with 152 detainees sleeping on the floor because of crowding.

Public Defender Denny Hyslip said the clinic was a useful tool in reducing the backlog of court cases that grew during the covid-19 pandemic and for helping control the jail population by reducing the numbers of people detained due to failure to appear in court.

Of the 717 people being held at the jail on April 22, 233 had at least one failure to appear charge. Of those 233 detainees, 97 had more than one failure to appear charge and 50 were being held on failure to appear charges alone, according to the Sheriff’s Office. Sheriff’s Office records showed there were 826 active felony warrants for failure to appear.

“It seems to be running pretty smoothly,” Hyslip said of Thursday’s warrant clinic.

Hyslip said he was working with people to get their cases rescheduled or to have a plea arrangement in which they agreed to be placed on probation. He said he wouldn’t accept any plea arrangements that didn’t allow the defendants to be on probation.

The warrant clinic is just one part of the larger range of alternatives and new programming the county is looking at to reduce jail crowding and streamline the criminal justice process. The county’s Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee is considering a mental health court, similar to the drug court and veterans court now operating and other programs to shorten the time detainees spend in jail awaiting a resolution of their cases.

The Quorum Court is also considering a $20 million plan to add beds and expand space for booking, medical services, courts, administrative offices and storage.

Jon Comstock, a former circuit judge in Benton County, was one of the volunteers helping people resolve their cases Thursday. Comstock said he was helping people who had cases in district courts. He said he and Stan Adelman, another volunteer, each helped 10 to 15 people resolve their warrants and have their cases put back on the district courts’ schedules.

“We stayed busy the entire time,” Comstock said.

Comstock said the warrant clinic provides a benefit to the criminal justice system and the jail, but offers more to the people who show up to have their cases resolved.

“Studies have shown that even as little as three days in jail can have a devastating impact on people’s lives,” Comstock said, noting that people incarcerated for even short periods of time fall behind on rent and other financial obligations and their families are affected if they lose jobs or income due to being unable to work. Those same people often fail to appear in court out of fear of the financial impact they think it may have, he said.

“We need more of these,” Comstock said of the clinic.