By By Suzanne Monk / Managing Editor
June 9, 2002
It's never the big problems that snarl up and take a lot of time to fix. It's the small ones. Having noted a problem in The Meridian Star's daily public records listing last week, the staff here spent a lot of time trying so far, unsuccessfully to solve it.
The problem was we hadn't been running all arrests made by Meridian police officers. Why? Because reporters had been relying on the docket at the Lauderdale County Detention Facility for all arrest information. But, if a person is arrested by a city officer and bonds out at the police station, there is no record at the jail.
Reporters stopped checking the arrest docket at the police station after the opening in 1998 of the new jail. We were under the impression that all arrests would be processed there to consolidate record-keeping.
That, by the way, is still Chief Deputy Mike Mitchell's understanding although Police Chief Benny DuBose says it has never been true of people who bond out at the police station.
False start
Of the arrests that ran in The Meridian Star since last weekend, only eight involved people who bonded out at the police station.
A reporter stumbled on the first problem Tuesday morning, when he made his rounds at the police station after Meridian Municipal Court clerks had arrived for the day and picked up the arrest slips. The police docket book lists only the name and charge. The arrest slips, which are kept in a drawer nearby, also include age and address. It's important to list that information so that the right "John Smith" or "Mary Green" is identified.
Once the clerks pick up the arrest slips, they become part of the court system and subject to 14-day request for public information delays. So, the solution was to make sure our reporter was there before the clerks arrived at 8 a.m.
Two problems cropped up the next day. One, sometimes the clerks pick up the arrest slips earlier than 8 a.m. Next, it turns out that arrest slips are picked up twice a day, not once. The second pick-up is at 3 p.m. We are now faced with the necessity of sending a reporter over to the police station twice a day to pick up information on a handful of arrests.
Is it worth it? Yes. If you're going to run arrests in the newspaper, you have to run them all. It's only fair.
Making sense
I'm a little confused about why this information is public record at 7:55 a.m. in one room at the police station and not public record information at 8:05 a.m. in another room at the police station.
DuBose told me he doesn't understand that either.
Municipal Judge Lester Williamson Jr. told Editor Buddy Bynum last week that basic arrest information is public record at the time of the arrest and at all points after that.
The Meridian Star ended up getting the appropriate information on each of these arrests directly from the police chief, but on the next day, when it was too late.
It doesn't have to be this hard. It seems to me that we ought to be able to simply ask for age and address information on this small number of arrests at any time of day, instead of having to appear physically before two daily deadlines. It's a 30-second phone call.
I do not fault the municipal clerks. They are following the procedure as it has been explained to them. Robert Baker, the newly hired head clerk of Meridian Municipal Court, said he will be meeting with Judge Williamson early this week to discuss public records concerns raised by The Meridian Star.
A final note
The events of the past couple of weeks have led me to examine a number of written records provided by local courts. I find that both Meridian Municipal Court and Lauderdale County Justice Court reports include not just "guilty" verdicts but also "not guilty" verdicts and dismissals. We will begin publishing these records as well.
If we publish arrests, it's only fair that we publish vindications as well.