Rearranging Deck Chairs on the Titanic

I had a moment of confusion this morning at the Harris County Criminal Justice Center, when I hopped on one of the building's infamous elevators.

The normal, dark wood paneling with the flimsy metal borders and carved graffiti interior had been replaced with shiny metal.  The dark gray flooring had been replaced with a pinkish tile.  It looked space-aged compared to the previous bucket of bolts that had been the trademark of the inefficient transport system that we have all come to know and hate at the CJC.

The little floor monitor thingy that (on days when it was working) told elevator occupants what floor we were stopping on no longer utilized the glowing red, digital numerals found on 1990's-era alarm clocks (and timers for bomb countdowns in spy movies).  It had been replaced by a cool new video monitor that showed the floor we were on, superimposed over an image of the CJC!  

It was all very exciting.  In the two years and five months since Hurricane Harvey, we are finally seeing some exciting signs of improvement!  I almost felt like I was in the elevator of someplace fancy, like a bank or some other place that cares about safety and efficiency.  I wasn't used to such luxuries at the Criminal Justice Center.

Of course, we didn't really need for the repairs on the CJC to make the elevators prettier.  I think that pretty much all of us would settle for an ugly elevator if it, you know, worked.  I've heard many people complain about the number of elevators not running on any given morning, but I've yet to hear someone say: "Sure these elevator work fantastic, but they are so aesthetically hideous that it ruined my entire criminal courthouse experience today."

Making the new elevators pretty and modern is pretty much akin to rearranging the deck chairs on the H.M.S. Titanic.  Two years later and all of the felony courts are still splitting time between the CJC and the Civil Courthouse because many of the courtrooms aren't ready for occupancy.  Absolutely nothing has been done to alleviate the backlog of defendants waiting in lines just to get in the building every morning.  In an obvious gesture of surrender to the masses, the County has constructed some sort of temporary covered walkway for the lines that form outside every morning.  

The building has become the architectural version of a mullet.  Space-age elevators on the inside.  Civil War-era shelters in the front.

I'm trying to figure out how this went down during the construction planning.

Contractor # 1:  I assume our first priority is to get the courtrooms up and running as quickly as possible?  Or maybe restructuring the entry to increase the efficiency of getting people in and out of the building?  Or getting the elevators in working order so that we don't have so many frequent breakdowns?  

Contractor # 2:  No.  First off, we've got to make the elevators look cool as shit. 

I guess I shouldn't be too surprised by the aesthetic elevator improvements.  After all, the first major step they took in the post-Harvey rebuilding efforts was to install a Fuddruckers in the basement of the Civil building.

I've heard from some insanely optimistic people reliable sources that the building is supposed to be back to "normal" by August of this year, but I'll believe it when I see it.

Maybe it would go a little faster if the powers that be realized we don't need a pretty building.

We just need one that works.

By the way, the over/under on when a disgruntled defendant smashes the glass on one of those fancy new floor displays is six business days.   I'm taking the under.

The Man Trap

Christine Haas is continuing her investigation into the CJC and the overcrowding it experiences every day. In this piece (which I believe aired yesterday), she gets County Judge Ed Emmett and the Fire Marshal's Office to finally weigh in on what's happening there.

I was disappointed to see both men give a soft-sell to what was happening with the building. Emmett notes that he's sure that sometimes the capacity of the building goes over 350 people? Dude, I'm totally voting for you in November, but seriously, "sometimes"????

But Emmett's quotes are nothing compared to Assistant Fire Marshal who called the problems at the CJC that they've addressed to be "minor", and notes that the reason there hasn't been follow up at the building since 2008 and was because nobody called in to complain.

What? Let's analyze that for a moment.

1. Is he seriously stating that the Fire Marshal only responds to inspect public buildings if there has been a complaint, and never for any other reason? So, basically, it isn't their fault, it's been the community's fault for not complaining?

AND

2. Is he really trying to say with a straight face that there actually hasn't been a complaint since 2008.

Kind of reminds me of the old phrase about pissing on someone's head and telling them it's raining.

At least Judge Emmett has some ideas in mind, but he's looking at the one that will be the most inconvenient while saving county money. I'm not sure how I feel about the ideas of staggered dockets. I suppose it wouldn't be so bad if they did all felony in the morning and all misdemeanor in the afternoon (or vice versa).

But if you have to start keeping track of different random courts with different random hours, I think you are going to have some chaos going on for Judges, Attorneys, and Defendants.

Either way, a major thanks goes out to Christine Haas for keeping on this story and hopefully changing that damn building for the better!

The best part of the clip is the Fire Marshal acknowledging that the CJC is actually a "Man Trap".

If that doesn't give you an idea of how dangerous the building is, I don't know what will.

KHOU's Take on the CJC Mess

KHOU's Christine Haas did a news piece on the crowds at the CJC that has some good footage of what it looks like.

You can view it by clicking here.

For those of you who would say that I posted the link because I'm in the story . . . well, you're probably right for the most part. See if you can spot the part in the story where I start laughing because Womble is taunting me off camera.

Action on the Elevators?

There's an article in today's Chronicle by Brian Rogers about the condition of the CJC and how poorly constructed it is.

The accompanying photograph shows the line outside the CJC and the article is entitled "The Long Line of the Law", which I have to admit is a pretty good title.

The article itself is hopeful since it looks like somebody might finally be taking he complaints about the building and safety seriously for a change.

Of course, it wouldn't be a Chronicle article without first thanking Pat Lykos for her merciful bounty that she bestows upon us all. Lykos, who was clearly the first person to discover that there might be a problem with the CJC and its elevators some time last week, notes the CJC is "the most poorly designed criminal justice center in the United States of America."

Funny, I was just saying that about her upper-Administration.

Sorry, that one was just too easy to pass up.

The article goes on to address problems that those of us who are in the building every day are all too familiar with. The difference with this article, however, is that it addresses some possible solutions that are coming at us pretty quickly. These include:

-starting Monday (per the article), Defendants in the Misdemeanor courts will no longer have to go by Pre-Trial Services on the 12th floor. (NOTE: for those of you all who aren't familiar with the CJC, just trust me that this will actually help. Explaining why would just take too long.)

-they are talking about stretching out the length of time between resets. (NOTE: Gee, wish one of us had thought of that idea.)

-an agreement between the judges that jury panels of over 60 people aren't going to be brought over until after 10 a.m. (letting the docket settle in).

and

-renovating the first floor to allow defendants to check in, pay fees and get drug tests in the same area.

These are all great ideas, praise Patsy.

Here's an idea that I was thinking about, too -- remove the first set of exterior doors that lead to the hallway where the jury rooms and judges' chambers are.

That would give everyone access to the stairwells in the corners and would be especially helpful for attorneys who are having to move from floor to floor on their cases. The downside would be that the jury room doors would be less "zoned off", from the general public, but that doesn't jeopardize their safety or the integrity of their verdicts.

Just a thought.

You may now resume your regularly scheduled Sunday morning.

Just an Idea

Co-written by Tyler Flood.


Well, it doesn't look like the Fire Marshal's Office or anybody else in control of safety, order, or reason at the CJC is going to be doing anything to help the nightmarish situation that occurs at the elevator banks every weekday morning.

Here's a view from last week at the bank:






And here:

I've been saying somebody would get hurt with all the crowding, and someone finally did. Attorney Mary Moore got one hell of a bruise on her arm by a defendant slamming his way into an elevator that was already filled to capacity. According to Mary, the defendant was unapologetic, but pointed out he couldn't be late for court.

The Commissioner's Court and the Fire Marshals aren't doing too much investigating in the mornings because they are most likely terrified of what the results of that investigation would show:

That the Harris County Criminal Justice Center is a poorly designed and poorly created multi-million dollar building that requires drastic structural changes to make it safe for the public. That would cost millions of dollars that the County just doesn't have to spend right now -- not to mention the havoc that would be created while construction to fix the problems was taking place.

They need about four more elevators on each side of the building and a floor plan that doesn't create the insane bottleneck that we all know and love every morning.

Or, we could re-evaluate some docket scheduling matters that might help it as well.

Why do Harris County Criminal Courts at law make all people on bond come to court every 2-3 weeks? Why don’t the courts give the defendant’s lawyers enough time to investigate the case and then come back to court when they are ready to do something on the case, like plead or go to trial?

This is completely unnecessary and a monumental waste of time for lawyers, defendants (people who have real lives and real jobs yet people who are being forced to take off work for almost a full day while their case is pending, people who are “presumed” at this point to be innocent. Why can’t Harris County follow proper manners and etiquette and extend a little professional courtesy to the people charged with an offense and the lawyers representing them and allow the parties to appear at mandatory court dates less frequently?

In Galveston County, they actually let you come to court about once every 6 months so you can actually have time to work on your case. Montgomery County will give you a 3 month reset. Fort Bend and Brazoria also show the same courtesy. Harris County, however, will make a person come to court about 5 times in a 3 month period.

Why does Harris County do this?

One reason is there are a few judges that are hyper-concerned with the number of cases pending on their docket. There has become a competition between courts to see who can plead out the most cases and have the lowest number of pending cases on their docket. How do you encourage more people to give in and just plead guilty? Make them take off from school and work so many unnecessary times that they risk losing their job or getting kicked out of school. That way, the defendant comes in, throws their hands up and says to their lawyer, “Let’s just get this over with, I’ll plead guilty because I cannot take off any more time to come to court for these settings.”

You know why the court building is unable to handle the number of people there each day?

Because it wasn’t designed to have 15,000 misdemeanor defendants coming to court every 2 weeks. Longer resets would save money on human resources and reduce overcrowding in the mornings. It would also give lawyers time to work on their client’s cases and give the case a long enough reset date to actually matter.

Also, by spacing out the dockets for your on-bond defendants, there is more space to bring in those defendants who are still in custody and having their freedom actually deprived at the moment. These are the ones who need to be working more quickly towards a resolution of their cases.

I know that docket numbers are important to the judges, but have we really examined why? In most instances, a high docket isn't a reflection of poor management by a judge. A judge has to do their job regardless of whether there are 100 defendants on their docket or 1,000. If a case gets reset, it may be because a prosecutor doesn't have some "to do" done, or it could be that a defendant just doesn't want to work out their case.

That's not something to blame on the Judge of the court, is it?

Anyway, it's just an idea.

(EDITOR'S NOTE: Any portions of this post that were written with poor spelling or grammar or that were in any way offensive to a judge were written by Tyler Flood. All the good stuff with immaculate spelling was written by Murray Newman).

Where's the Fire Marshall When You Need Him?

One of the common gripes from all morning attendees at the Harris County Criminal Justice Center is the absolutely ludicrous crowding that occurs every day at the elevator bank. The morons who designed the CJC have two sets of elevators.

On the west side of the building, there are four elevators that run all the way up to the 10th floor. A fifth elevator runs from the basement all the way to 20, but good luck catching it. Half the time, it has been commandeered by bailiffs trying to get a jury panel up to a courtroom.

On the east side of the building, there are six elevators that will take you from the first floor up to the 10th floor through the 20th floor. On any given weekday, one of these elevators will be out of commission, as more and more people jam their way past the metal detectors in the lobby into the elevator bank.

There are no escalators and there is no public access to stairways.

All rules of civility are thrown out the window as it quickly becomes every man and woman for themselves. Elbows are thrown and insults are hurled. Tensions flare in an already tense building, and the whole damn situation created every morning just isn't a safe one.

I took this picture this morning just to give you some idea of what it looks like, but it doesn't really even begin to do the chaos justice. Trust me, when you are longing for the spacious and roomy atmosphere of a New York subway, you are really in cramped quarters.



Oh, and don't forget that when you actually do get on an elevator, you get to deal with these folks.

A couple of years ago, the Fire Marshall came out and inspected the courtrooms and hallways and declared there could be no furniture in the seldom-used hallways behind the courtrooms. Apparently, furniture created a fire hazard. Keep in mind, these areas that they addressed aren't accessible to the general public and are never congested. But, the good folks with the Fire Marshall decided any type of furniture in the hallway, like, say, a chair, could be a threat to human life in the event of a fire.

But somehow they manage to overlook the elevator situation that happens every day?!

I'm really not trying to stir up trouble here (this time), but something really needs to be done about this situation.