It's been years in the making, but the realignment of the federal court divisions in the Eastern District of Arkansas is finally at hand.
For as long as anyone can remember, the 41-county district has consisted of five divisions based in Little Rock, Batesville, Helena-West Helena, Jonesboro and Pine Bluff. Each division operated for decades out of its own courthouse space, with Eastern District judges, all anchored in Little Rock, taking turns holding court in the four outlying areas.
But as part of a national effort to eliminate seldom-used court spaces and reduce the associated costs of rent and overhead for federal courts, divisional offices in Pine Bluff and Batesville closed in 2017, when the courts' leases on spaces used in those cities weren't renewed. Outside Little Rock, the hub of the district, business carried on as usual at the federal courthouses in Jonesboro and Helena-West Helena, the latter of which wasn't staffed by the district clerk's office.
Now, thanks to legislation signed last week by President Donald Trump, a plan that has been talked about for years is official. It formally establishes which of the district's 41 counties will be based in each of the three remaining divisions, which will be known as the Delta Division based in Helena-West Helena, the Northern Division in Jonesboro and the Central Division based in Little Rock.
The new official boundaries expand the Central Division, formerly known as the Western Division, to include six counties formerly in the Pine Bluff Division and two counties formerly in the Batesville Division. The Northern Division adds five counties that were part of the Batesville Division and two counties that were in the Helena, or Eastern Division. The Helena, now Delta, Division takes over three counties previously in the Pine Bluff Division, adds Crittenden County that was formerly in the Jonesboro or Northern division, and loses two counties to the Jonesboro Division.
The reshuffling will affect the makeup of jury panels, which are drawn from across a division, and, less importantly, will affect how cases are numbered in the court's electronic filing system.
Addressing the impact on jury panels, defense attorney John Wesley Hall of Little Rock noted that for trials held in the Little Rock-based Central Division, a jury pool will now be drawn from 19 counties instead of 11.
Hall said he didn't have time to check racial population data to know how that might impact demographics, "but I believe it will be close to what it is now."
In 2009, he represented a capital-murder suspect in the Western Division of federal court and asked that the jury be drawn from Pulaski County only, since that is where the crime occurred and where the case was originally charged. He said the population of Pulaski County was about 38% black, like the defendant, while the population of the entire division was about 18% black with the populations of the other 10 counties factored in.
"The government didn't file the case federally with that intention, but that was the effect," he said.
"I note for the positive, however, the addition of the Pine Bluff Division into Central Division is heavily African-American and it should substantially balance out," Hall said. "My only fear, however, is that the drive for some potential jurors will be so far they just won't come."
Hall noted that Dallas County, which was previously in the Pine Bluff Division and is now in the Central Division, "is well over an hour drive" from Little Rock, "as are Lincoln and Drew counties," also previously in the Pine Bluff Division.
U.S. District Clerk James McCormack said a jury wheel reflecting the new configuration of divisions will be implemented in December 2020, when the current arrangement expires. The wheel contains the names of prospective jurors from each division.
A simultaneous change being implemented by the U.S. district clerk's office on Jan. 1 concerning criminal cases is likely to have the biggest impact on defendants, attorneys, witnesses and criminal transport operations.
Criminal cases throughout the district have always been filed in the Little Rock Division, regardless of the division in which the crime occurred. The centering of all criminal cases in Little Rock has been a plus for U.S. attorneys, federal public defenders, prisoner-transporting marshals and probation officers, who are all based in Little Rock, but it has meant long drives from the far reaches of the district for some defendants, attorneys and witnesses who have had to commute, sometimes daily.
But, come Jan. 1, all criminal cases will be filed in the division where the crime occurred, and all trials stemming from those cases will be heard in the originating division.
Though some of the logistics are still in play-it-by-ear mode, McCormack said most pretrial hearings will probably still be heard in Little Rock. Any hearings and trials currently scheduled will remain where originally scheduled.
Calls about the change weren't returned by a handful of criminal-defense attorneys in Jonesboro and Helena-West Helena, who should have considerably shorter travel distances, and fewer hotel expenses, during trials.
Attorneys in Little Rock, including federal prosecutors and federal public defenders, are expected to be crisscrossing the highways in the eastern part of the district in record numbers to try cases in the Jonesboro and Helena-West Helena courtrooms as well as in the familiar Little Rock courtrooms.
"We'll do as we're instructed, and be where we need to be," Assistant U.S. Attorney Allison Bragg, spokesman for U.S. Attorney Cody Hiland, said Tuesday. She didn't discuss any specifics, including whether more prosecutors will have to be added for the sake of efficiency, but said, "We'll make adjustments as things develop."
Federal Public Defender Lisa Peters didn't return calls about how the change in criminal filings will affect her office, which represents clients throughout the district but whose attorneys are accustomed to trials taking place in Little Rock.
"There could be some inconvenience because they don't have an assistant stationed in each division," McCormack acknowledged. But, he added, "This is an opportunity to add attorneys to the CJA panel."
He was referring to a panel of court-approved private attorneys the district draws from when a client needs a court-appointed attorney but there is a conflict of interest with the federal defender's office, often because the federal defender's office already represents a co-defendant in the same case. The panel is established through the Criminal Justice Act.
McCormack noted that the district has seen "record criminal filings" in the past two years, primarily because of a nationwide focus by the Department of Justice on prosecuting gun crimes federally, where sentences are generally longer than those imposed in state courts and parole is unavailable.
McCormack said he has already hired a second clerk for the Jonesboro Division. In the Delta Division, he said, "Once we start having criminal cases there and once we start gauging the impact, I am prepared to add staff in Helena. I know there will be a need for a full-time presence in Helena."
While civil cases have always been heard in all divisions within the district, the motivation behind divvying up criminal cases across all three divisions, McCormack said, is "an opportunity for full utilization of our spaces" while minimizing travel for jurors.
"It's a model that's used by most districts now," he said, referring to the 94 judicial districts across the country, which includes at least one district in each state, as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.
Metro on 12/04/2019