Vicksburg Municipal Court has started weekend sessions to ensure that no one arrested by police remains in custody for more than 48 hours without a pre-trial hearing.

At such hearings, a judge determines whether arrests made without judicial warrants were justified by probable cause. If so, accused felons are turned over to the custody — and expense — of Warren County.

Municipal Judge Walterine Langford said weekend sessions bring the city into step with U.S. Supreme Court decisions and Mississippi’s rules of criminal procedure. But Warren County Sheriff Martin Pace said transferring prisoners from city to county responsibilities on Saturdays and Sundays puts dangerous pressure on his department, which must juggle a thin weekend staff and sometimes journey to other counties to find jail space.

“My court services officers — the officers who usually transport prisoners from court to jail — don’t work on the weekends because every court in the state of Mississippi but (Vicksburg Municipal Court) is closed on the weekend,” Pace said. “I’m down to my enforcement staff, the officers who patrol to look for crime and who make arrests.”

Seven-day weeks for deputies to drive prisoners are not authorized under the current budget, Pace said.

By law, only prisoners accused of felonies by police must be housed by the Sheriff’s Department and only following probable-cause hearings. But, because Warren County’s 128-bed jail is frequently at capacity, Pace often sends prisoners to jails in neighboring counties.

On Saturday, for example, the Sheriff’s Department took a woman accused of a felony to Claiborne County’s jail after appearing before Langford. All beds for women in Warren County’s lock-up were occupied. So a deputy was pulled from road duty to take the prisoner the 30 miles to Claiborne County.

“I had nowhere to put her — not a cell, not a holding cell, not a drunk tank,” Pace said.

The city is likewise barred from holding prisoners in police custody for more than 48 hours without a court hearing, Langford said.

The judge, since April the first full-time head of Vicksburg’s municipal court system, said her opinion is based in part on a 1991 case in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled delaying defendants’ probable-cause hearings beyond 48 hours cannot be justified solely on the grounds that a weekend intervened between the arrest and the hearing. Such delays are permissible only in “exigent circumstances,” the Supreme Court ruled.

Langford also cited as support for her position the rules that govern Mississippi county and circuit courts. Those provisions state that “every person in custody shall be taken, without unnecessary delay and within 48 hours of arrest, before a judicial officer or other person authorized by statute for an initial appearance.” However, the rules state they are binding on county and circuit courts, not the state’s 223 municipal courts.

To avoid 48 hours between arrests and hearings, Langford held court on the Saturdays following Christmas Day and New Year’s. Because city offices were closed on Thursday and Friday, closing court on the weekend would have allowed defendants arrested on Wednesday to go without a hearing until the following Monday.

Langford said municipal court will likely also be held on Sunday, Jan. 18, the day beefore the Martin Luther King Day holiday, to ensure individuals arrested by police on Saturday night receive a hearing in 48 hours.

The judge attributed the previous practice of not operating on weekends to the lack of a full-time judge.

“Not having a full-time judge is an exigent circumstance that can justify delaying a hearing,” she said. “We don’t have that excuse anymore.”

Warren County supervisors have hired a consulting firm to prepare a needs assessment and construction and funding plan for a new jail this year. Vicksburg does not operate a jail and pays Warren County or other area jails to house police detainees. The cost is about $400,000 per year.

*

Contact Ben Bryant at bbryant@vicksburgpost.com