HOULTON, Maine — When Aroostook County Sheriff Darrell Crandall first took office in January 2015, he said one of his goals was to reduce the percentage of inmates at the county jail with matters pending before the court.
“The higher that number is, the bigger the drain on resources the figure is for all of us,” Crandall said on Thursday. “That is a drain on not only our staff time, but court time, the district attorney’s time and others time as well. We need to get that number down as far as we can.”
During a recent Maine Supreme Judicial Court hearing in Fort Kent, Chief Justice Leigh Saufley noted that the “rate of jail inmates awaiting a hearing or trial for the crimes they have been accused of in The County was about 60 percent.”
Crandall said the number was closer to 62 percent, a “vast improvement” from where it was two years ago.
“When I first started, it was as high as 80 percent,” explained Crandall.
The sheriff said that soon after taking office, he began formulating a plan to reduce the figure by, among other things, communicating more frequently not only with the district attorney’s office, but with court staff, local prosecutors, and even the Maine supreme court.
Aroostook County District Attorney Todd Collins said that The County tries approximately 3,000 cases per year and works “as diligently as possible” to get every case through court as quickly as possible.
He said he does not believe it is an issue of manpower, even though Aroostook County superior courts in Caribou and Houlton have just one active justice and an active retired justice.
“Sometimes we have a case where we look like we are heading toward a quick resolution,” Collins explained. “But then the individual will violate the conditions of release several times and we will need to have multiple hearings on that and that slows down the case significantly. Things like that happen. But we plug away and we get it done the best we can.”
Crandall also does not believe it is a manpower issue.
“I don’t have the answer as to why some cases seem to resolve here more slowly than in other areas,” said Crandall. “But it is something I am addressing aggressively with Chief Justice Leigh Saufley and local and superior court judges through email and phone calls. Just simple things like being more clear on the court schedules and listing who is on the docket and making sure everyone has a copy so that the day runs smoothly has helped reduce the rate and save time for everyone.”
Saufley has addressed the issue of the slower case resolution times in northern Maine before. Several months ago, she seemed surprised that a case had been tried in Aroostook County Superior Court and presented to the Supreme Court for appeal in just under a year. She asked Aroostook County District Attorney Todd Collins if it had been on “some sort of rocket docket.”
Sagadahoc County Sheriff Joel Merry, who also is president of the Maine Sheriff’s Association, says the rate of inmates awaiting trial at Two Bridges Regional Jail in Wiscasset is similarly at about 60 percent. He said Tuesday that he believes the rate of inmates with matters pending before the court generally is higher in rural areas based on several factors.
“Larger counties that have busy cities and active court systems that hold court every day tend to move a lot quicker,” he said. “For instance, down here in Sagadahoc, we are very similar to Aroostook County. We don’t hold superior court every day, so that slows us down. We hold it every other month, so that certainly has an impact on the rate.”
Merry also said that anecdotal evidence has suggested to him that the rate can be influenced by attorneys, especially if a district attorney has “strong feelings about what a sentence should be” and doesn’t want to reach a plea agreement.
He also echoed Crandall’s statements about some of the steps corrections officials are taking to try and bring that rate down.
“We are all aware of the backlog, I believe, in every county,” he said Tuesday. “We at the sheriff’s department have worked hard to put together a spreadsheet to share with the court that has a wealth of information on it about the inmates who will be present that day, their case information, and more. Anything we can do to speed up that process a bit, we will do.”
The percentage of jail inmates awaiting trial in Penobscot County is 70 percent, according to Sheriff Troy Morton. Waldo County Sheriff Jeffrey Trafton said he does not track such information on a daily basis and did not have figures readily available. Sheriff’s departments in Oxford, Lincoln, Knox, Kennebec, Washington and York were not available for comment.
Crandall said that he is encouraged that progress is being made in Aroostook.
“But I am certainly not totally happy yet,” he said. “We still have a ways to go.”
