Paying millions housing dawdling alleged murderers

‘When I tell you my maximum security is full – it’s overflowing. For us, we have 480 beds set aside for  maximum-security and medium-assaultive inmates, and it stays full.’  - JCSO’s Deputy Chief John Shauberger

As alleged murderers allow their cases to pile up thanks to pandemic-induced court shutterings, Jefferson County residents have paid millions of dollars to house them in the local jail - which, according to the sheriff, has more hospitable conditions than state prisons.

Since 2019, Jefferson County taxpayers have paid approximately $1.2 million housing only the 10 longest-serving accused murderers; 75 more currently sit in the Jefferson County Correctional Facility on homicidal charges, with all 85 inmates costing taxpayers $10,030 to house each day their trials are delayed. To gain a better understanding of what exactly citizens are paying for, The Examiner gained access to an exclusive tour of the correctional facility Jan. 25.

Jefferson County Sheriff Zena Stephens, who oversees the facility, told The Examiner that local courts shuttering during COVID created a backlog of cases, filling to the brim the jail’s maximum security section. Alleged murderers, and other inmates, Stephens explained, are happy to avoid plea deals and earn as much time-served credit as possible in the county jail, which is air-conditioned – unlike “all” state prisons where they’d be sent upon conviction. According to the sheriff, inmates are coasting on the trial docket, knowing their case likely won’t be called for months.

“Pre-COVID, when the criminal justice system was working really well, you get some plea deals on some of these cases – because you have the evidence or whatever,” Stephens explained. “People are not doing that right now because they know the system is dragging. So, if you have the opportunity to not make a plea and hang out in Jefferson County, in our county jail, (they do). Because they’re in our jail, they’re from this area; it’s convenient for their families to visit. County jails are usually better than prisons. We have air conditioning – they don’t in state prisons. So, those summer months can be pretty uncomfortable.

“Say you’re not on one of these murder charges, even the misdemeanors, and the serious, serious felonies, they’re spending so much time here by not taking pleas that a lot of them will get credit time served here.”

Sheriff Stephens said that, while area crime stats remained relatively consistent through the pandemic, the judicial system’s slowing, and shuttering, meant cases couldn’t be tried or otherwise dealt with at the same rate, leading to the backlog.

According to data from the District Attorney’s Office, Jefferson County grand jurors indicted 100 people for murder over the past three years.

“There was no place to send them. Even some state prisons closed down and haven’t reopened because of the COVID numbers. I don’t know when we’ll catch up, if ever,” she said before turning toward solutions currently being mulled. “We’re doing some stuff here in Jefferson County, in commissioners court, and the judges have been wonderful in allowing some of these other judges who can hear criminal cases making their courtrooms available so they can hear some of these cases.

“What I have noticed is that when we do do that, we’ve had a couple people try to make plea deals.”

Stephens said opening additional courtrooms often elicits plea deals from inmates otherwise content to serve their time in the less-harsh county jail, rather than risk being sent to state prison. Even if an inmate’s case isn’t scheduled on the docket, some are prompted to “seek other arrangements,” namely plea deals, when trials start moving along more swiftly, Stephens said.

Millions spent on murders

Jefferson County taxpayers are charged with footing much of the bill for alleged killers while they “hang out” in the local jail to avoid harsher prison time.

Stephens told The Examiner it costs $118 a day to house an inmate at the Jefferson County jail, meaning it costs taxpayers approximately $43,070 a year for each incarcerated person. That’s roughly $3,589 to house a single inmate for one month at the facility. The jail’s longest-serving inmate, charged with murder, 20-year-old John James Cook Jr., has cost the county $163,194 since his arrest on April 14, 2019.

While numerous new inmates are added to and subtracted from the roster each day, Examiner observations throughout 2022 showed a range of 800 to 1,000 inmates on any given day of the year.

The jail’s operating budget for FY 22/23 is $39 million of the sheriff’s office’s $60 million annual budget, according to Chief Deputy John Shauberger.

“The way you figure out the $118 is you take in all the expenses it takes to actually house an inmate here – medical, food, all that combined,” Shauberger explained, saying that also included salaries for the dozens of employees required to operate the facility.

“The majority of our jail population are pretrial people, who are presumed innocent until proven guilty. We’re holding them for trial; that doesn’t say that they’re guilty. They may not be able to afford bail or afford bond, so they’re here waiting for trial.”

Rehabilitation is always the ultimate goal when talking about imprisoning people for the crimes, Shauberger maintains, adding, “Yes, there’s a punitive value to it, but you also want to release people better than they went in. Anything that we can do to make that happen, we’re going to try to make that happen.”

“In the criminal justice system, there are so many things that affect what we do – like substance abuse, mental health issues and those things that lead to criminal behavior. Whenever people come here, and they stay here waiting on trial, we have to better them,” he said in reference to the bevy of social services offered to help safely reintegrate inmates back into society. “You have people who have substance-abuse issues, who are abusing drugs, they have true addictions, and they’re arrested on those charges. Well, they come here, but their addiction didn’t stop. So, we have to deal with those things.”

Shauberger told The Examiner it takes a certain level of compassion for people to work in the criminal justice system, saying their empathy is regularly exercised when family members visit inmates.

“You just have to have true care for people,” he said, before explaining that even seemingly far-removed citizens are affected by the criminal justice system. “Nobody is immune from it. You look in somebody’s family deep enough – you’re gonna find it. We try to understand the situation for the family members. It’s like running a little city.”

And there are no vacancies in the most-dangerous neighborhood within that city, Shauberger revealed, with approximately 400 inmates filling the medium-assaultive to maximum-security sections of the prison. Those residents include alleged murderers, sexual assailants and otherwise violent inmates who have caused serious bodily injury to others. Alleged assailants who inflicted minor damage are typically held in the general population.

When asked what would happen if a new violent criminal came into the already-full jail, Shauberger said jailers have discretion to move the least-dangerous inmate in maximum security to a less-secure section. Shauberger said the county jail holds 96 beds for “max-security” inmates and 384 for “medium-assaultive” ones. They were all occupied the night of Jan. 25. The taxpayer cost to house those 480 inmates that single day amounts to $56,640.

“When I tell you my maximum security is full – it’s overflowing,” Shauberger specified. “For us, we have 480 beds set aside for maximum-security and medium-assaultive inmates, and it stays full.”

Managing those inmates is a “daunting” task, according to Captain Bruce Minter.

As Chief Deputy Shauberger puts it, Captain Minter oversees technology at the facility, but Minter says he’s responsible for “more than you could possibly imagine.”

According to the 30-year veteran of the jail, that’s the reality for most corrections officers.

Minter has been shanked thrice and assaulted numerous times over his three-decade tenure, saying the urine-soaked smell of the maximum-security section was actually pleasant in comparison to the aroma found where the jail’s mentally-ill inmates reside. That portion of the jail was also filled with a chorus of unintelligible shouting from those behind bars. Minter says that’s a 24/7 experience.

“We have a total of 85 people in our jail on homicide: 4 capital murders, 66 murder, 6 manslaughter, 7 intoxication manslaughter, 2 criminally negligent,” said Stephens when asked for a breakdown of Jefferson County inmates charged with various types of homicides, all of whom were located in the maximum-security section.

Admitting the number was “a lot,” she agreed it doesn’t necessarily reflect a rise in crime – instead pointing to pandemic-induced delays as the reason for the influx of allegedly deadly inmates.

“It will be at least a minimum of four or five years before numbers are back to normal. Even if you schedule trials when you normally did pre-COVID, you can’t have a trial every day,” she said.