THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, February 6, 1997 TAG: 9702060329
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ANGELITA PLEMMER AND MARC DAVIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH LENGTH: 151 lines
The Virginia Supreme Court released a scathing report Wednesday criticizing the Circuit Court clerk for excessive absences, poor management and staff incompetence.
The problems led to months of wrongful incarceration for one defendant and the wrongful arrest of another sentenced to probation.
Communication problems also led to criminal cases being delayed for years, the report says. In other instances, court fines could not be collected because they were improperly recorded.
The 62-page report was sent Monday to the court's clerk of 27 years, Walter M. ``Square'' Edmonds, by Supreme Court examiner Paul DeLosh. It was released publicly Wednesday. DeLosh discussed the report Monday with Chief Circuit Judge Johnny Morrison.
Edmonds dismissed most of DeLosh's unflattering report Wednesday, saying, ``He's made some comments which I just do not agree with. . . I think it got out of hand.''
Morrison said he met with DeLosh and has read the report several times, but could not comment until after meeting with Edmonds and the other Circuit Court judges.
The report detailed a number of problems in Edmonds' office following six months of visiting the site, interviewing office staff and examining thousands of court records.
Many of the auditor's recommendations have already been implemented by the office.
``Almost everything in there that (DeLosh) suggested, we've done,'' said Myra Harrell, chief deputy clerk. ``We've made a lot of progress.''
The audit began in March 1996 after then-Chief Judge Norman Olitsky learned that Portsmouth had the highest number of pending cases in the state - 11,101. Olitsky asked the Virginia Supreme Court to help determine why, and the court sent DeLosh. Olitsky received a copy of the report this week, but declined to comment on it.
The review was so extensive that the city provided DeLosh with several part-time assistants. Early on, DeLosh said he found court papers on the floor instead of in case folders. He closed at least 3,000 criminal and civil cases that had been listed as pending.
The final report was highly critical of Edmonds, 63, who is paid $87,402 a year.
Among the criticisms is Edmonds' excessive absence from work. The report says Edmonds was out 40 days from March 18 to July 31 last year.
``The frequent absences of the Clerk of Court signal to staff, local bar, public and other court-related agencies his lack of responsiveness to the administrative needs of the court,'' the report stated.
Edmonds attributed some of his absences to personal and health problems.
In March, he appointed a deputy clerk to run the office in his absence, but the report said the clerk, Myra Harrell, had few of the skills needed for the job. Harrell has worked in the clerk's office for nearly six years.
``No one person with the knowledge and management skills necessary to run the clerk's office is present on a daily basis to manage and supervise in the clerk's absences,'' the report says.
Edmonds dismissed the charge, saying he could always be reached by his staff if problems arose. Harrell said Edmonds' absences ``never caused a problem.''
The report also says that lack of training was a problem for Edmonds' staff, which led to violations of state codes, clerical errors, misplaced files and misinterpretation of court instructions.
``I feel my staff is adequately trained,'' Edmonds said.
The first few weeks of the audit revealed that the backlog of pending criminal and civil cases was caused partly by the clerks' failure to close cases in the court's computer system, which reports those closures to the Supreme Court. The number of pending cases has been reduced to 6,490. That means Portsmouth now has fewer cases pending per judge than most courts in Virginia.
Criminal trial problems
Sloppy record-keeping and communication problems have delayed criminal hearings and trials - and worse.
The worst cases involve two defendants who were wrongly jailed because of clerks' mistakes.
In one case, the report says, a suspect was forced to stay in jail for several months, even though a grand jury failed to indict him. The defendant should have been released immediately.
The report does not say how the mistake was made, how long the defendant was in jail, or how the mistake was caught. The report says the grand jury issued ``not a true bill'' against the suspect, meaning there wasn't enough evidence to charge him with a crime. The jury's action apparently was not communicated to the jail.
In a second case, the report says, a defendant who was serving two years' supervised probation for a first-time offense was improperly arrested when a clerk wrongly issued a writ for his arrest.
The report says a clerk misunderstood the proper procedure for treating such a suspect, who is under a bail bond. The report did not say how long the suspect was in jail before he was released or how the mistake was caught.
The report neither gives the defendants' names nor discusses their cases in detail. Edmonds acknowledged both cases Wednesday, but said he could not recall how they came about.
``Spending even five minutes in jail is bad if you don't have to. But two cases out of the thousands and thousands we have every year is not a bad track record,'' Edmonds said. ``It's not a daily occurrence. It probably happens in every court in Virginia.''
The report also found widespread problems with how criminal cases were handled and tracked.
For example, cases were ``allowed to languish on the docket for several years'' because they were not set down for hearings and trial. This happened because the clerk's office and the prosecutor's office did not trust each other, so each used a different case list to set hearing dates, the report says.
As a result, some cases were never set for trial. The report does not say how many cases were affected, or how serious those cases were.
Also, the report says, bail decisions by magistrates ``are in jeopardy'' because clerks are not filling out paperwork properly - leaving out details such as bail and hearing information from criminal continuance orders.
Again, the report does not detail how this is affecting bail decisions.
Staff incompetence
One theme running throughout the report is staff incompetence, or malfeasance.
The report cites two unnamed clerks who did part-time work for outside companies during business hours. It says one clerk ``holds a part-time job utilizing recorded documents for a private company during business hours of the clerk's office. This is well-known by the clerk and staff and is continuing to occur.''
Another clerk, who no longer works there, had a similar part-time job during business hours, the report says.
Edmonds said the report is wrong: ``She wasn't doing that (private work) on my time. . . If it's done, she does it after 5 o'clock.''
Also, the report says, the court is losing some criminal fines because clerks are recording them wrongly. The report does not say how much money the court is losing or how widespread the practice is.
The report also says that important documents filed with the court, such as deeds, are left unrecorded on the front counter of the records room for days at a time. Often the documents have cash or checks attached for fees, with no receipts given, the report says.
Confidential records jeopardized
About 100 to 200 keys to the clerk's office were given to people who said they needed to work after business hours, the report said. The clerk's office had no log of who had those keys, the report found.
This was a problem, the report says, because many confidential records and case files are kept in the office, including some divorce and nearly all custody records.
Edmonds, however, said he never gave out so many keys. ``There aren't 200 lawyers in Portsmouth,'' he said. He said he sometimes gave a key to someone who needed it for after-hours work, but it was always promptly returned.
``I think we're on the right track,'' Edmonds said. ``We're in total compliance with what (DeLosh) recommends.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
Walter M. ``Square'' Edmonds
KEYWORDS: PORTSMOUTH CIRCUIT COURT CLERK REPORT INVESTIGATION
VIRGINIA SUPREME COURT