Bartholomew County courts are seeking additional money for expenses incurred from the postponement of jury trials during the pandemic, which are now being scheduled.
Much of the additional costs are from the postponement of jury trials from early-2020 to mid-2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Bartholomew Circuit Court and Superior Court 1 are receiving additional funds from the Bartholomew County Council this month.
With the possibility of eight jury trials before the end of the year, a Bartholomew Circuit Court official asked and received an additional appropriation of $35,000.
About $10,000 of that money will go into a jury fund, court office manager Tammy Johannesen says. Much will be spent on bringing in a jury from Shelby County for a murder trial postponed last July because a local jury could not be seated due to them knowing or hearing about the case prior to jury selection.
Costs include rental buses, gasoline, correction officers to drive the buses and a court reporter to ride in each bus, she said. The job of the court reporters will be to ensure that jurors don’t talk about the case with other jurors, Johannesen said.
She added the remaining $25,000 will be spent on the court’s other services accounts. Barring any more unexpected expenses, the additional funds should be adequate to finance the court’s needs through the end of the year, Johannesen said.
Money was also transferred into a supplemental public defender’s fund. Money in the account comes from partially-indigent defendants who normally put in $100 for a court-appointed public defender, Johannesen said.
Meanwhile, Bartholomew Circuit Court 1 Judge James Worton has asked for and received an additional $30,000 for professional services.
These funds will go into an account used to pay attorneys for their work on appeals, and well as to pay qualified professionals to examine defendants suspected of having mental health problems, court office manager Teresa Million said. After an exceptionally high number of cases this year, the fund has diminished to only $759, Million said.
“I still have five pending mental health evaluations by doctors who have not submitted their claims yet,” Million said.
At the time of the request, Superior Court 1 also had over $4,000 in pending invoices that were due, she said. In addition, the county has six outstanding appeals that will cost $2,000 apiece that will be billed over the next two-and-a-half month, Million said.
Earlier this year, Worton asked and received additional money to pay jurors since his court has also experienced a significant jump in jury cases.
At the Bartholomew County Jail, utility costs that ran about $21,000 in May rose to $33,000 each month from July through September, jail commander Maj. John Martoccia said.
That prompted a request for an additional $120,000 that the jail commander believes should cover utility costs for the rest of the year. A new heating, ventilation and air conditioning system being installed in the building should help bring down those costs, Martoccia said.
The jail commander also asked for and received an additional $10,000 to fund the extradition of prisoners. That amount includes $6,500 for two deputies who recently flew to a border town in Texas to bring back a prisoner wanted in Bartholomew County, Martoccia said.
For now, the jail commander believes the remaining $3,500 in the additional appropriation will be sufficient for additional extraditions from now through the end of the year.
