FORT SMITH -- The Sebastian County Jail has seen less bookings for failure to appear in court in part thanks to a system the county implemented late last year.
Tammy Luper, business analyst for the county, said Wednesday the eCourtDate text notification system went live in the county Circuit Court and Greenwood District Court on Dec. 13. The system notifies defendants via text message of upcoming court dates they have in these courts such as arraignments, hearings or trials, as well as any changes to their dates.
Luper said the circuit court had a 28% reduction in failure to appear events for criminal cases from January through June compared to the first six months of 2021, going from 486 to 348. The district court likewise went from 362 to 235 failure to appear events in the same period, which amounts to a 35% reduction.
The county jail, by extension, had 31% fewer bookings for failure to appear during the first six months of this year compared to the first half of last year, from 1,791 to 1,241, according to a report shared at the Quorum Court meeting Tuesday. This includes both felonies and misdemeanors.
Gunner DeLay , circuit judge and chairman of the county Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee, said having people show up in court when they're supposed to will save considerable space at the county jail, which has had crowding issues for years.
"I think we all would've been satisfied if we'd had a 20% reduction, so we're kind of exceeding that and that's good news," DeLay said.
DeLay said the county court system has a large number of criminal defendants who don't have a permanent residence, which makes it challenging to notify them of upcoming court dates through mailed notices. However, many people have electronic devices allowing the court to notify them via eCourtDate on multiple occasions leading up to their scheduled appearance.
Sheriff Hobe Runion, also a Coordinating Committee member, believes the eCourtDate system has been effective in diverting people from the jail who would have otherwise ended up there on a warrant for failure to appear in court. He said many people who go to the jail under these circumstances stay there "for a long time," especially with circuit court cases.
"If they have failed to show up two or three times, it's not at all uncommon for them to wait three to six months to go to court, and a lot of times they'll be there on a cash bond, so they're not really allowed to get out unless they have access to a large amount of money," Runion said.
Fort Smith District Court implemented the same system for their defendants on June 8, according to Luper. The report states the court had a 48% reduction in failure to appear events between June 8 through July 8 in 2021 and that same period this year, which Luper said translates to going from 332 to 174.
However, the report notes some of that drop can be attributed to a lighter case load overall in the wake of covid-19. It states the Fort Smith District Court issued 1,859 bench warrants from January through June 2021 and only 882 from January through June of this year.
Rachel Sims, district court clerk for Fort Smith, said the delay in her court going live with eCourtDate came down to it using a different case management system from the other courts, as well as turnover in the city's Information and Technology Services Department.
Luper has said the Quorum Court approved spending $2,499 to buy the eCourtDate software for the circuit and Greenwood district courts Oct. 19, as well as $1,100 for another product meant to assist with transmitting the text messages. Jeff Turner, county administrator, wrote in an Oct. 13 memo to the Quorum Court these are yearly costs.
A defendant needs to have a 10-digit phone number on record with either one of the courts or the jail to receive notifications from the eCourtDate system, according to a report included in the packet for the June 21 Quorum Court meeting. People can also opt out of the service by replying to the notifications with "STOP."
The Sebastian County jail has 356 beds. The Quorum Court established the Coordinating Committee in August 2017 to find ways to reduce the population at the facility and improve the justice system.
Gavels and case books display on Friday, July 22, 2022, inside a meeting room at the Sebastian County Courts Building in Fort Smith. The Sebastian County District Court, Sebastian County Circuit Court and Greenwood District Court have all experienced reductions in failure to appear events following the implementation of the eCourtDate text notification system, which notifies defendants via text message of their upcoming court dates. Visit nwaonline.com/220724Daily/ for today's photo gallery. (NWA Democrat-Gazette/Hank Layton)More News
NoneJail Population
The Sebastian County Jail had a population of 411 inmates as of 5:30 a.m. Tuesday. Of this total, 156 were Arkansas Department of Corrections inmates, 161 were circuit court felon inmates, 46 were city and state misdemeanor inmates, 22 were federal inmates and 26 were other types of inmates.
Source: Jeff Turner, Sebastian County adminstrator