Audio clip
Yolanda Mitchell
Hamilton County Commissioner Fred Skillern on Wednesday asked Chief Judicial Commissioner Yolanda Mitchell to start recording how many bonds magistrates set on their shifts.
Mr. Skillern said he needs to know what the judicial commissioners’ busiest times are so he and other county commissioners can decide whether to hire another magistrate or cut back.
“I’m trying to make a business decision,” Mr. Skillern said. “I want facts.”
Ms. Mitchell said recording that information would be tedious.
“I just don’t think he understands the burden that would be,” she said of Mr. Skillern’s request.
Still, Ms. Mitchell said she would try to get the four full-time and four part-time magistrates to begin recording their activities.
When the commission hired Ms. Mitchell and the other magistrates in September 2007, Mr. Skillern had stated that he would like to have an account of their busiest times.
Ms. Mitchell told Mr. Skillern that no one day is particularly busier than others, though she did note Sundays usually are slow.
The exchange occurred during a meeting of the commission’s Legal and Legislative Committee at which commissioners and Ms. Mitchell discussed staffing issues and problems magistrates have encountered.
Ms. Mitchell said she has had problems with jail officials who have asked for magistrates to sign bonds without seeing detainees who are waiting to have bonds set.
“They want us to go ahead and set a bond without seeing a person,” she said. “That’s a problem for me.”
Ms. Mitchell also said jail personnel were taking longer than she wanted in bringing defendants before magistrates.
Capt. John Swope, the jail’s corrections captain, declined comment on Ms. Mitchell’s complaints.
Also in the meeting, Commissioner Warren Mackey asked if Ms. Mitchell has had any problems dealing with Hispanic detainees awaiting bond hearings.
Ms. Mitchell said those detainees stay in jail for a long time.
“None of the magistrates speak Spanish,” she said. “We don’t have an interpreter.”
