Back in 2014, the North Carolina General Assembly decided to merge Halifax County into a new judicial district with Northampton County, Hertford County and Bertie County. This was part of a statewide judicial restructuring move that, to be honest, seems to have just been mostly for cost-cutting attempts. It promised more efficiency and effectiveness and has failed miserably and has expeditiously cost us more in just the detainee housing category.

 

The state saw payroll expenses, retirement and insurance for multiple DAs but didn’t realize that the stresses on one person and office would massively increase wait times for cases to be resolved and inevitably cost a lot more to the tax payer.

 

Here’s the truth. It was 100% about cost savings and had no real way that it could improve the justice process or system. We were already behind in case logs, but now it's multiple times worse. Folks sitting in jail for over-extended amounts of time. In some cases, many times longer than the actual jail sentence would have been. Many cases have to be continued for years because of unprepared or unavailable prosecutors. 

 

This was pitched as a cost saving measure, but consider this, any savings that was saved on salaries and benefits has been nullified just by the additional cost of housing detainees that are awaiting resolution to their cases. Waiting their turn cost way more than having additional DAs. Why do grocery stores have more than one check out? So you can serve as many people as possible, and get them in and out! This simple mindset needs to be applied to this. 

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Right now, when multiple counties share one District Attorney’s office:

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• Prosecutors must divide their time between several counties

• Court dates get staggered and delayed

• Serious cases may wait behind cases from other counties

• Victims awaiting justice for extended times

• Additional travel time and cost associated (It is 49 miles between Hertford County courthouse and Halifax County courthouse, and its 60 miles between Bertie County courthouse and Halifax County courthouse)

• Major contributor to jail over-population

• Repeat offender based on lax punishments

• Stresses on law enforcement and the public who continues to deal the repeat offenders

 

If Halifax had its own district (or only one partner county, Northampton):

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• Prosecutors would be focused primarily on Halifax cases

• Less backlog from outside counties

• Less travel time and expenses associated 

• More time on the job

• Faster charging decisions, plea offers, and trial scheduling

• Victims can start the healing process faster because cases are concluded faster

• Less time for detainees to await due process 

• Less stress on Jail and staff

 

Result: Shorter time from arrest → resolution = TIME AND MONETARY SAVINGS!!!

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This is a NO BRAINER! Common sense tells you one person and staff CANNOT efficiently nor effectively handle the case loads appropriately of 4 counties! This is why you see plea deal after plea deal, because they have no time to properly prosecute cases. With the amounts of tax payer dollars wasted every year, why was this the one thing they cared to actually cut cost to? Make it make sense?

 

Ask any law enforcement officer how our local system is working, I doubt they will hold back. Our officers are not being respected. They risk their lives repeatedly, just to deal with the same dangerous offenders. When the system gets so complacent that it allows a corrupt police officer charged with 72 felonies, to plead to 24 months probation, it’s time for a BIG change.

 

This is why my team and I will work to collect hard data that supports the need of going back to our own judiciary district or at least with only 1 county (Northampton). We will present this to our elected leaders and keep you, the tax paying citizen, in the loop as we work to accomplish this goal. This will dramatically improve the judicial system here locally and reduce cost across the board. Just the detainment cost alone will support the cost of this proactive move. 

 

We don’t just want to provide you with the best Sheriff’s Office possible, we want to work towards fixing the entire justice system and the processes involved!