By JOAN MCCOY
Leader staff writer
District court is the place where misdemeanor offenders get to plead their cases before a judge, but many of the candidates for judge over the district courts in Lonoke County say they’re doing more than that. Districts are also the place to stop illegal behavior from escalating to the felony level.
Lonoke County has been divided into northern and southern districts. The northern district holds court in Cabot and serves Cabot, Ward and Austin. Judge Joe O’Bryan, who has been on the bench there for 18 years, is being challenged by Ken Williams.
In the southern district, which has courts in Lonoke, Carlisle and England, three candidates are on the ballot, but only one, Teresa Hallum Smith, hopes to preside over all three courts. Ginger Stuart Schafer is running only for Lonoke district judge, while Judge Joe Svoboda is running for district judge in Carlisle and England, positions he has held since 1976.
Confused?
You are not alone. In an effort to clear up the confusion in the southern district, Svoboda included a sample ballot on the brochure he hands out as he campaigns door-to-door, a ballot that includes candidates for judge in Carlisle, Lonoke and England.
He said this week that the residents of Lonoke are often bewildered when he knocks on their doors. He said he explains that he does know where he is, but what they need to know is that they get to vote in all the races for the southern district judge position because the police officer who gives a traffic ticket in Carlisle might very well send the case to the court in Lonoke.
In the northern district, Judge O’Bryan is campaigning for the first time in many years. The judge is known for working out payment plans for fines. He also was one of the first judges in the state to order those convicted of driving under the influence of alcohol to submit to almost constant monitoring to prove that they were sober enough to drive. But he said in recent months he has been looking more at a program implemented by Judge Vic Fleming of Little Rock who holds traffic court at high schools to show young offenders what happens when they drink and drive.
“It might drive a point home to some,” O’Bryan said.
O’Bryan said he also sees domestic violence cases that he believes can be stopped with intervention and it’s essential that offenders receive the help they need.
“Aside from fines and sentences, I try to offer defendants a path out,” he said. “It’s not easy being in trouble.”
Williams, a former Cabot city attorney who also served more than two years as the appointed district judge in Lonoke, says there must be a better way than what the courts are currently doing to stop bad behavior – illegal behavior – from escalating.
Lonoke County has a serious drug problem, Williams said. Fines and incarceration haven’t curtailed it, so perhaps drug treatment programs would.
“I’m interested in setting up a rehab program,” he said. “There are some faith-based programs out there that we are looking at.”
Williams said the court can’t do it alone, that the community will need to get involved.
“We have a unique opportunity at that level to modify behavior,” he said. “If we miss it and they take the next step and make it to circuit court, it’s too late.
“I will search high and low for solutions. I know there must be a better way,” he said.
Judge Svoboda has always run unopposed in England and Carlisle, but this year, he has had to campaign. And many of the southern Lonoke County residents he has encountered have been before him in court, usually for traffic charges they think are unwarranted.
“I hope I at least treated you fairly even if you didn’t like my decision. That’s the most important thing to me,” the judge said he tells them. And most have said he did.
Svoboda said what most defendants want is to have a chance to tell their side of the story. Since he works during the day for the attorney general and holds court at night, the defendants he sees have given up their time away from work to plead their cases and they expect to be treated with respect.
“I try to reach the right decisions based on the facts,” he said. “But I also try to make them understand why I reached that decision.”
“If they are willing to take time out of their lives to come to court, they must feel like it was worth their while,” he said.
Schafer, a partner in her father’s law firm in Lonoke, says she is the only candidate for Lonoke District Court judge who lives in
Lonoke and will be available at all hours to sign search and arrest warrants.
But she says availability is not the only reason voters should consider her for district judge.
“In my private practice, I have both defended and assisted in the prosecution of misdemeanor criminal offenses. My private practice involves a wide range of civil cases, including contract, property, tort, and domestic-relations cases. Rather than limit myself to only one area of law, I have had diverse legal experiences that I believe will help me to effectively adjudicate the different types of cases heard by a district court judge,” Schafer said.
“As for changes to the current system, I want to create a more fair and automated system of dealing with first-time offenders with low-level offenses and otherwise clean records in that they will be automatically offered some form of probation and fine penalties, rather than having a first lapse in judgment to negatively affect their driving records and insurance rates,” she said.
“Currently, the system treats offenders who know to ask for such a resolution of their offenses differently than those that do not, which I do not believe is fair. Obviously, a person needs to be punished for breaking the law, but the punishments should be uniform, giving no group special favors over another group,” she said.
Smith, who has worked both as an assistant prosecutor and an assistant public defender, says she has always viewed herself as a public servant and she sees the district court as a place where change in society can begin.
Smith said the defendants in district court too often get caught up in a cycle of fines.
They are fined for some infraction of the law and when they can’t pay the fines, that’s another infraction that leads to another fine they can’t pay. Or perhaps their misdeeds are more malicious, and fines, even if they could pay them, won’t make them change their course.”
“Assessing a fine is not the answer in every case,” Smith said. “Rehab might be the answer sometimes. Or maybe jail time is the answer.”
The same defendants go through the district courts time after time, Smith said.
“It’s snowballing,” she said. “We’ve got to figure out a solution. It’s got to start somewhere.”
