March 2, 2000

Mark Alderson
County Commission

RE: COMMISSION REVIEW OF PROBATION SERVICES

Dear Mark,

Because press coverage and the minutes of Commission meetings are inadequate and often inaccurate, I enjoy watching by cable.

It was gratifying last week to see that you called for a review of Probation Services affecting the criminal justice process in Anderson County, including Criminal Court, General Sessions Courts and Juvenile Court.

I share your concern about fiscal wastefulness and redundancy, case management efficiency, ethical and legal propriety in program administration with respect to rules and regulations, and accountability to appropriate criminal justice authorities.

This office approves of the Commission's recent efforts to take charge of misdemeanor corrections and bring supervisory functions within the close control of a Director of Probation within the four walls of the courthouse. State Probation already does a good job with felonies. The County’s role is an improvement over the contracted agency formula previously engaged to manage probations remotely because now we have more direct and familiar access to case records and to necessary evidence, especially with regard to timeliness of revocations and the problem of admissibility (chain of evidence) of random test results which previously were largely beyond our reach for access or authentication.

It is especially important that you included a review of the Juvenile Probation Staff in your motion, because as currently constituted Juvenile Probation presents special problems.

Please find enclosed a copy of the November 13, 1998, Court of the Judiciary Ethics Opinion (No. 98-5) holding it impermissible as a violation of judicial impartiality and of the principle of separation of powers for the Juvenile Probation staff to be employed and managed by the Juvenile Judge.

Furthermore, it should be remembered that the underlying theory of juvenile court and its very reason for being distinct from adult court is informality.

If "Informal Adjudication" under TCA 37-1-110 were utilized in Anderson County as it is in surrounding jurisdictions, then it would in fact take several probation officers to handle the informal adjudications caseload, and the officers would always be busy. Currently their value is not optimized by such efficient deployment and they sit in court a lot. It is not contemplated under Tennessee law that a juvenile judge handle all cases formally before the court without liberally employing TCA 37-1-110 concepts of informal adjudication.

If the same Director of Probation which administers Misdemeanor Probation were to undertake supervision of Juvenile Probation and the Juvenile Court were to take full advantage of statutorily available Informal Adjudication, then Anderson County would be in a better position to render these services with unquestioned fiscal accountability and efficiency, and this would also cure the ethical dilemma.

Our youthful offenders would be better served and Anderson county would be in compliance with the law.

In addition, the City of Oliver Springs is working with us now and our new cooperation is bringing state cases arising in the Norwood precinct to Oak Ridge City Court. This is an auspicious consolidation of accountability regarding Misdemeanor Probation and court costs out of Oliver Springs. Thanks is due to the leadership of the Oliver Springs City Council, the City Attorney Jimmie Turner, and the new Police Chief, Paul Massingill, who have taken action as a result of the Tennessee Supreme Court’s recent opinion in our Declaratory Judgement Action —all parties are now confident they know the law, we are sworn to uphold it, and we are doing our job.

Please consider this opportunity to make a giant step forward with respect to Juvenile Justice in all of Anderson County as you undertake this review of Probation Programs.

Thanks, Mark, for your sincere interest as a public official in these public policy matters relating to the integrity of probation services and for your attention to the principle of judicial economy and comprehensiveness with respect to criminal justice resources.

Yours very truly,

James N. Ramsey
District Attorney General

JNR/tg

Cc: Rex Rex Lynch, County Executive
      Jerry Creasey, Commissioner

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Note: See Oak Ridger article of March 24, 2000, which references this letter.