According to a City Council workshop presentation made by the Grants Pass City Attorney last Monday June 15, there are only two larger cities in the entire state of Oregon that are legally allowed to have a municipal court but don’t have one in place. One is Grants Pass and the other is Gresham.
If the discussion moves forward, this workshop was just the first in what would likely be several City Council discussions about the pros and cons of starting a muni court once again in Grants Pass. The Grants Pass City Charter already allows a muni court and the appointment of a judge, and decades ago the City probably did have a muni court at some point.
In what was more than 10 years ago at this point, Grants Pass informally looked into the potential of reforming a city municipal court. The bottom line is that City revenues would increase, but operating costs would also increase, leaving the City with close to a breakeven proposal from a financial perspective. Right now, the City merely receives its share of violation fines such as traffic tickets once they are settled and paid through the state court system.
The preliminary high-level overview of the current feasibility of a muni court in Grants Pass looks similar from a financial perspective. But only if the municipal court focuses on violations and not also misdemeanor charges. If the City’s new municipal court would also prosecute lower-level crimes such as trespasses and other misdemeanors, it appears the net cost to the city would likely increase significantly.
Many Grants Pass City Council members appear to want to be able to prosecute lower-level crimes to the greatest extent possible, because various limitations in our county District Attorney’s office and County adult jail operation have limited the amount of lower-level crimes that can be prosecuted. The desire to prosecute all levels of crimes is an honorable one to hold people accountable for all manners of bad behavior, but it also appears would be a costly one.
We’ll have more details on just how costly in the near future. The City Council voted to direct staff to gather more specific information about how costly it would be to prosecute misdemeanors through a city municipal court. This cost detail would include more information about the projected cost of staff and judges to run the muni court, the cost of attorneys to handle the cases, potential net revenues from prosecuting different types of cases, and potentially even the cost of the City renting jail beds for municipal court use.
In a related discussion on Monday, City Council member Indra Nicholas pressed Mayor Clint Scherf to schedule a discussion of the creation of an exclusion zone as soon as possible. This has been an item pending discussion by the City Council for some time. Exclusion zones allow city law enforcement agencies to temporarily ban individuals who commit certain crimes or nuisance offenses from entering defined commercial or downtown areas of a city.
Given what will likely be a very costly proposal for a Grants Pass municipal court that prosecutes misdemeanors, in my opinion the Grants Pass City Council should try to get solid answers to the following questions before considering moving forward with the creation of a municipal court in Grants Pass:
- Should an exclusion zone be created before the creation of a municipal court to study the impact of such an exclusion zone first?
- Will the creation of a municipal court in Grants Pass allow police officers to arrest or cite individuals at different levels than exist today without the muni court?
- Given the legal and other resource limitations at the Josephine County jail, would the creation of a municipal court affect who can be arrested and taken to jail? Would it affect who can stay in jail for an alleged misdemeanor compared to limitations in place today?
- There are widespread reported shortages of defense attorneys and prosecutors. Is it feasible for a new Grants Pass muni court to prosecute misdemeanors in this environment?