Monday, September 14, 2009

Recorders Court: Incompetent In More Ways Than One

Officers are required to sign up for a Recorders Court date as far out as 90 days. They are to sign up for only one date per month. The reasoning being, to cut down on overtime paid to the off duty officers. Sounds pretty good, if it worked.

Very often, court dates have to be reset for a variety of reasons which is understandable.

What is not understandable is why clerks of the court blatantly disregard these predetermined court dates. Often times they reschedule court dates leaving officers attending court 3 or 4 times a month and in some instances, more than 2 times a week.

This defeats all efforts of cutting overtime cost which means even more waste of taxpayer money. Officers plan around their predetermined court dates. When they are called or subpoenaed for court unexpectedly, the officers are put in a bind.

These officers lose sleep, have to find child care, lose out on extra job money, and have to reschedule or entirely miss planned family activity. Officers who are off duty have the right to somewhat of a normal personal life outside the department.

The Grand Jury has already found that the leadership of the Recorders Court, including head Judge Walker incompetent. We hope that Burrell Ellis will be replacing her sooner than later with someone who is competent. And while they are at it, maybe get back to some uniform scheduled court dates for the sake of our officers and the taxpayers of DeKalb County.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

That hit the nail on the head.

Anonymous said...

It's simple math folks....no tickets=NO COURT!! Even Willie D can figure that one out.

Anonymous said...

I've had to go to Recorder's Court 4 times for the same case. Each time, the defendant had lawyer issues. It still hasn't been resolved. All together, I've wasted about one whole day on one ticket! It's funny how WE get suspended without pay if we miss court, but Judges let defense attorneys miss court repeatedly without repercussions. How fair is that?

Anonymous said...

They are starting to tell us that we cannot attend training classes already approved because of a stupid Recorder Court Subpoena's. At roll call they told us if you get a subpoena to just go and you can take the training class at a later date. Then when you go to court on a off-day the person fails to appear in court. What a place.

Never Missed a Day but...... said...

The only competent administrator in the whole building seems to be the one responsible for tracking the attendance of officers and reporting absences to the Chief's office.

They lose millions of dollars in tickets but have no problem making sure the officer on the street totes a few days for missing court.

Go figure!

Anonymous said...

Officer X wrote a dozen tickets...

Officer Y wrote quota and answered dispatched calls.

They both got the same annual merit raise...Zip, Nada, Nothing!

On top of that....Officer X has a much greater chance of being suspended for missing a court date.

Why tempt fate by writing more than quota.

Anonymous said...

Tickets? Recorders Court?

If you joined ICP when you had the chance, you'd have a take home car and the ability to pick and choose which uniform calls to jump.

Spend you day glad handing and jumping simple felonies in progress. You'll pad your stats and rarely see the inside of a court building. Let CID do the heavy lifting and leave the BS to the hacks in uniform.

Come on...its not rocket science.

Anonymous said...

I.C.P. Lets See......INCREASE CALLS PENDING........that's it.

Thanks

Anonymous said...

Well if you get a ticket, you are told to wait five business days and call and see how much the fine is; it has been six weeks and they still don't have it in the system. I imagine most people would pay their fine if they could find out what it was and that would save everyone alot of time and energy. Absolutely ridiculous. I call daily but still not in the system.

Better DeKalb said...

Recorders Court has made me an ULTRA safe driver. I used to fear getting a ticket for financial reasons. Now I fear having to deal with Recorders Court.

Anonymous said...

Judge Walker needs to be fired. How does someone fail so miserably at their job and still have a job?? One Atlanta mayoral candidate caught a lot of flack for saying the Atlanta Finance office resembles Enron. Shirley Franklin demanded an apology, as did the Chief Financial Officer.

Do you know what the difference is between our Recorder's Court and Enron?? Enron had about 10,000 more employees than Recorder's Court, but Recorder's Court had about 3 times as many convictions for corruption!!! How do you like those statistics??? And Walker remains in power!!!! What does it take to get fired in DeKalb??

Anonymous said...

I sign up to go to court once a month. If I get subponeaed for a date other than my court date....well, sorry, I ain't going. When is the last time they have actually suspended an officer for not going to court? You think recorder's court really cares if you don't show up? Hell no! Worst case scenario: the judge will throw out the ticket for lack of prosecution. Next topic please...

Anonymous said...

It is now September 23rd and still nothing in the system relating to a ticket received on September 5th. Absolutely amazing. What is going on?