Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
New rules cast doubt on practice in future
In a few small towns across Arkansas, district judges still hold night court for misdemeanor offenses.
People arrive directly from work, sometimes with kids in tow. Defendants are dressed in overalls, sweats and camouflage.
For some spectators, night court is even a source of entertainment, where defendants might include friends or neighbors.
In the parking lot outside Elkins District Court, members of the First Baptist Church grill hot dogs and hand them out to people waiting to face the judge.
“A free hot dog makes people feel more at ease,” Elkins District Judge Ray Reynolds said. But the Ball Park Franks are available only during the warmer months of April through October.
“It may be an antiquated thing. Casey and I may be
dinosaurs walking the land.”
ELKINS DISTRICT JUDGE RAY REYNOLDS, referring to Clinton “Casey” Jones, Fayetteville’s prosecutor by day and district court judge in West Fork and Greenland at night
Night court in Arkansas can seem quaint as judges, lawyers, prosecutors and defendants descend on smalltown courthouses to hash out plea agreements, handle arraignments or conduct trials that can last past midnight.
But all night courts may stop as new rules are implemented across the state.
The rules will do away with part-time district judge positions. Many district judges in Arkansas are practicing lawyers by day, which is why some towns have night court.
Full-time district judges will have less incentive to hold court at night, Reynolds said.
“I think they’ll all go to day court,” he said. “It may be an antiquated thing. Casey and I may be dinosaurs walking the land.” Reynolds was referring to Clinton “Casey” Jones, who is Fayetteville’s prosecutor by day and district court judge in West Fork and Greenland at night. The decision about whether to continue night court in Washington County — where Elkins, West Fork and Greenland are located — will be up to the four fulltime district judges who will be elected next year and will begin serving in 2017. Reynolds isn’t seeking re-election. The filing period ended Nov. 9 for the election that will be held March 1.
CUTTING COURTS
Barbara Griffin, the lone district judge in Jackson County, said she will end the three night courts in her county — in Diaz, Swifton and Tuckerman — after the rules take effect there on Jan. 1, 2017.
Griffin, who has been a part-time local district judge in Jackson County since 2005, said she will have to quit her day job with Legal Aid of Arkansas to be a full-time state district judge in 2017. She is running unopposed for re-election next year.
Legal Aid of Arkansas is a nonprofit organization that provides free legal services to low-income people in civil cases. It is headquartered in Jonesboro and serves 31 of the 75 counties in Arkansas.
“I don’t see any reason to continue night courts,” Griffin said. “If there’s no prohibition, I’m going to end night court and have everything during the day.”
Beginning in 2017, Woodruff County will be added to the judicial district that previously included only Jackson County, and Griffin will oversee district courts in both counties.
Full-time state district court judges are paid $140,000 per year. The pay for part-time local district judges varies across the state.
The rule changes began in 2008 and will continue until 2029, with different counties being affected at different times, said Keith Caviness, staff attorney with Arkansas’ Administrative Office of the Courts.
The timetable for the statewide change is explained in Act 1081 of 2015. The act stems from Amendment 80 to the state constitution, which was passed in 2000.
“Amendment 80 was a total revision of the Judicial Article in the Arkansas constitution,” according to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture. “Two of the primary changes were the merger of law and equity courts, and the institution of non-partisan election of state court judges.”
Amendment 80 began the slow change of local municipal courts into state district courts.
Act 663 of 2007 defined state district court judges as full-time judges “who are not engaged in the private practice of law.”
“In 2017, the state will add 16 state district court judgeships, which will bring the total from 38 to 54,” Caviness said. “This transition will occasion the loss of 36 local district court judgeships, which lowers that number from 72 to 36.”
District courts handle misdemeanor criminal cases. Locals often refer to district court as “traffic court.” The most serious cases in district courts often involve charges of driving while intoxicated or domestic battery.
Each county in Arkansas has at least one district court. Some counties have several.
Caviness said his office doesn’t keep track of every town in Arkansas that has night court.
Jackson and Washington counties reported on their 2014 administrative plans that some courts in the counties began at 6 p.m. Ouachita County also had one night court in Bearden at that time, but court there is now held during the day.
Dan Ives, a district judge in Ouachita County, said he didn’t hear anybody complain when he moved night court to daytime in 2014.
“I think people are glad to get out of there earlier,” he said of defendants, lawyers, prosecutors, clerks, witnesses and police officers. Sometimes people attend just for entertainment, Ives said.
“We have had people in Ouachita County come to watch court because there wasn’t anything good on TV that day,” he said.
Reynolds, a practicing attorney by day, is one of those who will be affected when the rules change for Washington County on Jan. 1, 2017.
He has been on the bench in Elkins for 31 years, but next year will be his last. Not because of the new rules, though, he said.
Reynolds is 66 and has decided to retire from the bench for personal reasons, so he’s not seeking re-election. But he’ll continue to work at his law firm.
Reynolds has been holding night court twice a month. He said there was more of a need for night court three decades ago.
Back then, many people would fail to appear in court during the day because they couldn’t get off work, Reynolds said. Night court was more convenient for them. But Reynolds said he believes that has changed. Workers can get time off from work to go to court now. Caviness said the rule change will likely mean fewer night courts around the state as other judges do what Griffin said she’ll do and quit holding court at night.
‘TWILIGHT COURT’
Fred Kirkpatrick, the district judge for Boone County, said his Alpena department had night court when he began his job in 2005. But 7 p.m. was too late, so the start time was moved to 6 p.m., then 5 p.m.
“When I first started here, I thought the older I get, the harder it’s going to be to stay awake,” Kirkpatrick said.
Now, Kirkpatrick calls it “twilight court,” but he said it’s almost always dark when he leaves the courts building in Alpena.
Some other towns in Arkansas have court that begins at 5 p.m. While it’s not night court when they start at 5 p.m., it is dark when they leave during the winter.
Kirkpatrick said Alpena has part-time police officers, and it’s easier for them to get to court to testify after 5 p.m.
“We’ll probably leave it at 5,” he said. “Everybody seems to like the 5 o’clock start. It just seems to work out. … It’s just a matter of people being used to it, and the officers do have to work their schedules and be able to get there to testify.”
Boone County was in a pilot program that changed its local district courts to state district courts in 2008. In 2017, Newton and Searcy counties will be added to Kirkpatrick’s Boone County district.
In Fayetteville, Casey Jones said he will quit his day job as a prosecutor to serve as a fulltime district judge in 2017.
Jones has been the Fayetteville city prosecutor since 1992, when it, too, was just a parttime job.
“It’s going to be hard for me to leave,” he said.
Jones said he doesn’t know if night court will end in Washington County. That decision will have to be made by the four full-time district judges that will be serving the county beginning in 2017.
Jones is running unopposed for re-election next year. The only contested race for a Washington County district judge is in Division 2, which pits Graham H. Nations against Casey D. Copeland.
Jones has night court in West Fork once a week and in Greenland once a month. Also, he hears civil cases in West Fork one night a month and does first-appearance hearings via video on Fridays.
On Tuesday nights in West Fork, defendants who are representing themselves begin meeting at 6 p.m. with prosecutors, who often try to talk them into plea deals.
At 7 p.m., Jones takes the bench. He does arraignments and guilty pleas before hearing trials, if there are any that night.
On a recent Tuesday night in West Fork, Jones presided over the trial of a man who had driven a black Hummer into the back of a vehicle turning right off the Prairie Grove bypass. The defendant told police that he had consumed three beers with dinner.
Police did a field sobriety test and determined that he was intoxicated. But John Mikesch argued that his client, who is Hispanic, failed the test because he doesn’t understand English. After about an hour of testimony and arguments, Jones ruled it a tie.
“And a tie goes to the runner,” he said, using a baseball reference.
The man was fined $100 for following too close and ordered to pay $95 in court fees.
Jones has been on the bench in West Fork for 15 years.
“The first five or six years, I had a rogues gallery of guys who would come to watch court every Tuesday night,” said Jones, referring to some World War II veterans who would have a running commentary among themselves during court.
“We did it just for entertainment,” said Issac “Zeek” Caudle, 90, of West Fork. “There was three of us that didn’t have nothing else to do. On court night, we’d go down there and sit there and listen and watch them bring in the convicts in their shackles and all of that stuff.”
Caudle said the three men had reserved seats on the back row against the west wall of the courtroom. He said Jones is a “fine judge.”
Since Caudle and his wife owned Phillips Hardware Store in West Fork, if Jones needed information on the price of board feet of lumber or hardware-related questions, he would turn during court to Caudle or the other two men for the answer. Caudle said the men had to keep their comments to themselves for the most part during court, though. “You had to be sort of quiet about it,” he said. “You ain’t supposed to be doin’ the judgin’. You’re supposed to be listening to what the judge says.
“We had our own way of doing things. Course, Judge Jones knew exactly what we was doing. It was just entertainment.” Caudle said he quit going to night court in West Fork four years ago.
“I got to where I couldn’t see and couldn’t hear so I had to quit going,” he said. The other two men also no longer attend. But Caudle said he thinks West Fork night court should continue.
“If they went to day court, them people would have to take off work. The night court is a blessing for people who get tickets and such as that and gots to come to court. I wouldn’t close the night court at all. It’s a nice deal for somebody that’s got to come. Everybody screws up. I never have yet.”