Franklin BOC Considers Moving to State Court for Misdemeanor Cases

As the murder trial in Superior Court in Carnesville continues, Franklin County’s Board of Commissioners is researching whether to agree to a plan to expand State Court into Franklin County.

At their work session last week, the board heard from District Attorney Parks White.

In an attempt to head off the question of cost to the county to eliminate traffic and misdemeanor court from the current Probate Judge’s office, White said justice is not about money, it’s about public safety.

Currently, the six assistant district attorneys in the Northern Judicial Circuit handle about 500 cases at a time and about a third of those are misdemeanor cases White believes would be better served in a state court.

White said sending misdemeanor cases to a State Court would free his ADA’s to spend more time on felony cases for Superior Court.

“I can’t tell you whether the State Court will be any more revenue positive than the current Probate Court,” White said. “I can tell you that when we have as many felonies as we do, handling the misdemeanors with the assistants is becoming impossible and will continue to become more so.”

White said of the 110 DUI cases they’ve handled since January 2013, only two have pled down to lesser offenses.

Since 2013, White said they have pared down the 8,000 pending cases he started with 2013 to 2,000 but more come in every day.

Probate Court Judge Ken Eavenson said he would go along with whatever the County decided.

One question Commissioners had was whether the County would lose revenue from the fines and court costs in probate court.

Commission Chair Thomas Bridges said County staff would have to do more research before making a decision.

Bridges did not give a timeline as to when a decision would be made.