Several regional court officials informed the audience about new or proposed programs of the Eighth Circuit Court District on Wednesday at Founder’s Square at the 128th Annual Neshoba County Fair. Eighth District Circuit Court Judge Christopher Collins, a Union native, said the district is in the process of starting a mental health court to accommodate suspects who are suffering from mental illness.
Collins said he first came up with the idea when he attended the National Judicial College in Reno, Nev., last fall.
“The problem-solving courts in our district are very active. We already have a drug court, a DUI court and a veteran’s court,” Collins said. “As a practitioner, I realized that there was a sector of the population that we weren’t really serving. When the mentally ill get charged with crimes, oftentimes the district doesn’t really have the resources to adequately deal with their prosecution and their case. It’s very expensive, and often those people languish in county jail for a period of time, and that just shouldn’t happen.”
Collins said he got support from state Sen. Jenifer Branning, District 18, and state Rep. C. Scott Bounds, District 44. Branning and Bounds put together a bill that would create the structure of a mental health court the district has started a pilot program and now is looking to secure a grant to fund the program and get it going.
Newly appointed Eighth District Circuit Judge Mark Duncan announced his intention to run for re-election in 2018 to retain the post after he was appointed by Gov. Phil Bryant to replace retired Judge Vernon Cotton in May. Duncan also praised Cotton’s efforts to start the district’s drug court and said it continues to pay dividends.
“I can already tell that’s going to be one of the best parts of this job,” Duncan said. “It’s something that I look forward to being a part of. We all owe Judge Cotton a huge debt of gratitude or being the spearhead. We now have the largest drug court in Mississippi and one that is a model for drug courts everywhere, and Judge Collins and I are committed to keeping it that way.”
Collins said that in addition to clogging up the legal system, drug abuse plays a part in economic development and ability of companies to fill openings. He said he read an article that said that despite an improving economy and low unemployment rates, there were still a high number of job applicants who can’t pass drug tests to get hired.
“I called up a friend who owned a chemical company. And asked him, what kind of success rate are you having for first time job applicants,” Collins said. “He said the failure rate was 50 percent.”
Collins also said the new electronic court system, which will centralize circuit court records on a secure server at the state Supreme Court Building, will make researching cases easier and save the state money.
“That system ultimately is going to allow 24 hour a day access to records in court,” Collins said. “We’re ultimately going to be able to get away from hiring a private company to manage our electronic records which will, district-wide, save us some $36,000 a year. So that’s something that I’m looking forward to implementing.”
Also speaking on Wednesday were newly appointed Eighth Circuit Court District Attorney Steven Kilgore, who was appointed to the post by Bryant to replace Duncan, and his older brother, Joseph Kilgore, Sixth District Chancery Court Judge.
