Purple-hued doorsback to 1930s gray
The crape myrtle dotting the northern side of the 600 block of East Capitol Avenue -- where the historic part of the federal courthouse sits -- are in full bloom, their brilliant purple blooms visible from blocks away and their fallen blooms providing a burst of color on the sidewalk.
But as of a few days ago, they are no longer sharing the limelight -- er, spotlight -- with complementary purple courthouse doors.
That's because two workers in Sherwin-Williams caps spent Monday and Tuesday painstakingly applying a smelly three-step concoction to restore the two sets of triple-steel doors that had mysteriously turned an ever-deepening shade of purple after being installed three or four years ago.
By Wednesday, the doors -- which had been replaced as part of a gradual restoration of the 1931 structure -- were silver-gray once again, in keeping with the formality originally intended.
It was a project that has been planned since last year, when people whose jobs involve paying attention to the outside of the building realized the purplish hue wasn't an optical illusion.
Steve Elliott, the building's space and procurement manager, said in May of 2013 that the reason for the color change had perplexed a few people, but all agreed it had something to do with the sun. He noted that there had been no change to identical interior doors that lead into the courthouse from a vestibule beyond the purple doors. All the doors, he said, started out the same brushed aluminum color as the framing.
Officials said last year that the original painters would return within a matter of months to refinish the exterior doors with a corrective coating at no charge.
Only time will tell if it worked.
Court in Jonesborogets resident judge
A recent behind-the-scenes reorganization is expected to move the federal courthouse in Jonesboro further down, or even off, a national list of federal courthouses being considered for cost-cutting closures.
The change took place in April, when U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr.'s official duty station was changed to Jonesboro, where he lives, from Little Rock, where he still regularly holds court.
By assigning him to one of the four divisional offices of the Eastern District of Arkansas outside the main Little Rock division, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis has changed the status of the Jonesboro facility from that of a nonresident courthouse to that of a resident courthouse. And it is the nation's nonresident courthouses that for years have been potential targets in the downsizing effort.
In 2012, The Associated Press reported that 60 nonresident federal court facilities in 29 states, many of which were in remote areas, were in danger of being closed. Six of those were in Arkansas, where for decades there have been 11 federal courthouse facilities in the eastern and western districts combined. Those on the targeted list in 2012, in order of danger, were Harrison in the Western District; Batesville, Jonesboro and Pine Bluff in the Eastern District; Hot Springs in the Western District; and Helena-West Helena in the Eastern District.
The list is re-evaluated annually.
Marshall's duty-station transfer includes a reshuffling of judicial caseloads that is expected to make life easier, over time, for the seven district judges and six magistrate judges in the Eastern District of Arkansas, as well as residents of the eight counties comprising the Jonesboro district: Randolph, Clay, Greene, Lawrence, Craighead, Mississippi, Poinsett and Crittenden.
Since April, Marshall has been assigned 40 percent of all civil cases filed in Jonesboro, while he has correspondingly seen a drop in his percentage of civil cases filed in the other divisions. This means that as the cases mature, Marshall, as well as residents of the Jonesboro district, won't have to make as many trips to Little Rock for hearings and trials. Similarly, the other judges in the district will make fewer trips to Jonesboro. All judges, however, will continue to travel on a rotating basis to the district courthouses outside Little Rock, including Jonesboro.
Criminal cases in the district are almost always heard in Little Rock and aren't affected by the change.
Metro on 07/13/2014