NATCHEZ, Miss. — Adams County supervisors on Monday approved the creation of an office of county-paid attorneys to defend indigents accused of crimes. A budget for this will be set later.
The public defenders office with five lawyers has been estimated to cost as much as $320,000 a year, said Circuit Judge Lillie Blackmon Sanders.
She met with county supervisors Monday to urge them to establish the office she’s been asking for since early this year. This replaces the current practice of retaining nine private attorneys the court calls on to represent criminal defendants who can’t afford to hire their own. The lawyers were paid $2,800 a month by the county. Sanders said establishing an official county public defenders office would improve the current system.
While the Board of Supervisors approved the office’s creation effective Oct. 1, salaries and other expenses have yet to be finalized.
As proposed earlier, Sanders would appoint a chief public defender, who would hire four other attorneys to work part time to represent defendants accused of crimes in Adams County. Sanders is the Circuit Court’s senior judge. Debra Blackwell is the other circuit judge.
A 2018 report for the Mississippi Legislature cited a study of public defenders in Adams and nine other Mississippi counties. A key finding of that study was that they had “no method to ensure that its local governments are fulfilling the state’s constitutional obligation to provide effective assistance of counsel to the indigent accused in felony cases in its trial courts.”
Adams County Sheriff Travis Patten is again pushing the Board of Supervisors to advance the long-standing proposition to build a detention facility to replace the county’s 45-year-old jail that’s considered defective, dangerous and outdated.
Board President Ricky Gray said Monday that county supervisors will “put our heads together” and decide later if they’re actually “serious” about building such a multimillion-dollar facility.
Patten asked the board Monday to formally state its intent to study construction costs and where to put a new jail.
The board for several years has known the current Adams County Jail is substandard but has been deterred by the costs of building a replacement. A $7 million estimate was made in 2014 for constructing a new detention center.
Built in 1975, the existing jail on State and Wall streets by the Adams County Courthouse has had various structural problems in recent years, such as a leaky roof, mold, poor ventilation, crumbling exterior bricks and malfunctioning cell locks. Patten has said its conditions imperil jail inmates, sheriff’s office employees – and the public.
The sheriff, who oversees the jail that can hold about 80 or more inmates, pointed to Adams County Grand Jury reports about the problem-plagued facility. He’s noted the county is vulnerable to being sued because of its poor conditions. Court-ordered jail repairs have been made in recent years, but more upgrades are needed.
In past discussions about a new jail, county supervisors have weighed whether a new jail should be out in the county rather than in downtown Natchez.
Adams County will be compensated for the extra costs taxpayers shouldered while the disposal site normally used for their garbage temporarily closed last month.
The Riverbend landfill in Jefferson County reopened last week after enduring an August fire as the privately-owned facility also goes through bankruptcy proceedings.
While Riverbend was closed, Adams County’s trash collectors had to transport residents’ garbage to another commercial landfill in south Adams County at a higher cost of about $10,000. However, Riverbend has agreed to offset this by deducting the amount from the landfilling charges the county would normally pay, said Adams County board attorney Scott Slover.
While the landfill near Fayette was out of commission, he said, Riverbend defaulted on the contract it has with the Adams County Board of Supervisors to dispose county trash.
Riverbend charges the county about $19 per ton of garbage it takes while Waste Management’s Plantation Oaks landfill in Adams County charges $44 per ton. Slover said. “It’s approximately $10,000 more than it would have been, and
Riverbend has agreed to offset it with their next invoice and their previous invoice” he said.
This comes as corporate owner Riverbend Environmental Services is involved in federal bankruptcy litigation that began last year and is to be resolved with a new owner taking over.
Riverbend has separate contracts with the Adams County and Natchez boards to bury residents’ trash. City trash collectors also had to take Natchez trash to Plantation Oaks while Riverbend’s landfilling was halted.
The county’s trash collector is Metro Service Group of New Orleans. Arrow Disposal Service of Alabama picks up the trash for residents inside Natchez.
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