Public Safety Committee

PUBLIC SAFETY COMMITTEE October 18, 2019 A meeting of the Public Safety Committee was held this date beginning at 2:16 p.m., at 80 Broad Street, City Hall, First Floor Conference Room Notice of this meeting was sent to all local news media. PRESENT Councilmember Shahid, Chair, Councilmember Seekings, Councilmember Wagner (arrived at 2:24 p.m.) and Mayor Tecklenburg (left at 3:51 p.m.) Staff: Chief Reynolds, Chief Curia, Lieutenant Bruder, Susan Herdina, Steve Ruemelin, Janie Borden, Rick Jerue, and Bethany Whitaker Also Present: Amy Barch, Turning Leaf, DeMario Ravenel, Lakesiya Cofield, Court Director, Joyce Downs, JoAnne Hayes, The Honorable Thomas P. Morrison, The Honorable Michael A. Molony, and The Honorable Phyllis A. Rico Flores The meeting was opened with an invocation provided by Mayor Tecklenburg. Approval of Minutes On the motion of Councilmember Seekings, seconded by Mayor Tecklenburg, the Committee voted unanimously to approve the minutes of the July 31, 2019 meeting. Presentation on Turning Leaf Project – Amy Barch, Founder Ms. Barch stated that they worked with men recently released from incarceration who had been cycling through jail and prison for most of their life. They also worked with people that were likely to get back into trouble if they didn’t have intensive intervention. Their model was based on a cognitive behavioral approach. The men took about 150 hours of skills training over ten weeks. They reported to the center every day from 9-5. They spent half the day in group classes and the other half working in the T-shirt printing shop. They ran a full-service t-shirt screen printing business. She had spent the last five years working with the City as a funded project and it had been great having a partnership and trying to figure out what the right building blocks were to get the program operated well. At this point, they had a program that was pretty much in the final stages of design and they could look at it as a model that could be replicated. It was starting to be looked at nationally. Their arrest rates were good. They had a 7% re-incarceration rate graduates and a 22% re-arrest rate, and they were working with about 55 men this year. They were excited about what was happening and the doors were always open if people wanted to see what they were doing. Recently, they had the Department of 1 Corrections out wanting to buy the curriculum to implement in the prisons. It would be fun to see where it went. She always brought students with her so that they could see what happened behind the scenes. Mr. Ravenel stated that it was good to be on that side of the situation and he appreciated the opportunity. He appreciated the Committee. Chairman Shahid asked where he was working. Mr. Ravenel said he was still in the print shop. He was going through his sixteen weeks and he was in week 12. Ms. Barch said that all of the men went through about ten weeks of classes in the print shop and then they moved to full-time employment and Mr. Ravenel was in his full- time employment. They gave them about $11 per hour and they were trying to get them acclimated to what work felt like. Then, they transitioned them out to the workforce. The City was one of their job partners, but they had been lucky enough to expand into the private sector that year. So, they were now placing in a lot of different companies. Chairman Shahid asked if they were still getting referrals from Federal Court and General Sessions. Ms. Barch said the vast majority of their students were reentry and didn’t have any pending charges. They were coming to them right out of State prison, Federal prison, or jail. Sometimes, they did still take people from Federal Court who were using it as a condition of bond. Chairman Shahid asked if there was a follow-up with the men who were rearrested or reoffending to see what happened. Ms. Barch said it was really person dependent. Sometimes, someone would get rearrested and they would still continue to keep their job. They had people in that 22% re-arrest rate that kept their job and were still continuing on their track. They were also willing to work with the men if they were re-incarcerated when they got back out. They tried to re-engage people and tried to re-engage their drop-outs too. They recognized that people might need multiple shots and second chances. Mayor Tecklenburg asked how many of their individuals were employed with the City and if they kept track of that. Ms. Barch said they did. They had about 15 people employed with the City right now. Over the course of the five years, they had about 25 people employed with the City. The City had definitely been their biggest job partner until this year when they were able to move into the private sector. This year, they had sent six people to the City and all of them were still employed. So, they had 100% retention rate for everyone sent to the City this year and that said something about them, but also about the City as an employer. They had never had that high of a retention rate for any job partner. It had been a nice match. Mr. Ravenel was looking to go to the City and they had an application out for him. Municipal Court Presentation – Lakesiya Cofield, Court Director Chairman Shahid said that as they were going through the review of the Public Safety Committee, they realized they had not paid a lot of love and attention to court services. He 2 thought it was prudent for them to check in with them and see what was going on. He wanted to hear from the judges and they had the Court Director there as well. He asked what they were looking for and what they could do to make their lives a little easier and provide a better service to the community and citizens. The Honorable Michael A. Molony stated that he was primarily responsible for the Livability Court. He always said that his objective was to work himself out of a job. He felt like they were making progress, but they did have a lot more work to do. The biggest thing he had seen lately with Livability Court was the Short Term Rental enforcement. It had worked extremely well with what they had done in presenting the cases. They had taken the easy, low-hanging fruit, cases where there were no permits such as the advertising cases. The conviction rate was very high and the rate of people coming in and saying they were guilty was high. He had to commend Ms. Borden. She was phenomenal and did a great job prosecuting the cases. Loud noise cases was also a big issue. There met every other Monday and had jury trial terms. Almost every jury trial term they had, it seemed like they had a trial. Councilmember Seekings asked what kind of cases were going to trial. Mr. Molony said they had short term rental, loud noise, and tour violation trials. The tourism cases had really fallen off. He thought the tourism ordinance the City had was excellent because it was so clear. From his perspective, Council had been really supportive. He had made some presentations to neighborhood groups and it was fun. He would also be filling in temporarily for Judge Mendelsohn until it was decided what would happen next. Chairman Shahid state that from the enforcement standpoint, the short term rental people were not working on the weekend when some of the violations were blatantly taking place. So, he thought they needed to tighten that part of it up. He thought that was the next wave that would be coming before the court. He had talked with Mr. Riccio about being a little more aggressive now that they had their feet on the ground with the ‘low-hanging fruit’. Mr. Molony stated that college students had figured out that they could sublet and do ‘short term rentals’. They had clever ways of doing that. Those cases were pretty difficult to prove, because they weren’t the owners of the property. They were making a substantial amount of money off their leases. That would be a problem if the word got out of how much money could be made. It was serious money, sometimes around $750-$1,000 per night. Ms. Cofield, Court Director, read the mission statement of the municipal court. She referenced the divisional chart which included all of the judges, corporation counsel, and all the staff. They had three divisions within the court including court services/operations, court accounting, and court systems. They had the court clerk, court systems coordinator and a TAC/Safety Officer. That person made sure they were in compliance with all SLED operations and worked closely with the TACT in the Police Department. 3 Chairman Shahid asked what type of SLED regulations they had to worry about. Ms. Cofield said when they had cleaning companies, they had to make sure the backgrounds were checked. If there were visitors in the court, they had to be escorted and sign in. They had a lot of personal data within the office. Within the court accounting, they had an accounting technician, court accounting manager, senior accounting tech, and also a court specialist. Within court operations, all of the staff was responsible for actually going to court, making sure all the dockets were prepared. The operations manager managed all the staff. Each clerk was assigned to a different court. The court specialist served as administrative staff and assisted and filled in with court sessions as needed. The senior docket clerk served as a layer between the docket clerk and the operations manager. They were the more senior staff so they had a little more responsibility. The docket clerk helped the operations manager on a day to day basis. Ms. Cofield referenced the path of court cases going from when the citations were picked up from the Police Department to the end when the dockets were finalized and the cases were closed. She referenced the types of courts they had. Mayor Tecklenburg asked if the College of Charleston was a standalone court. Ms. Rico Flores said it was standalone and they had very few tickets through that court. It was normally things like citations for skateboards or bikes on the sidewalks. Mr. Molony stated that a significant number of the college cases went to the Livability Court. If he wasn’t mistaken, the standalone College of Charleston cases were cases where the college police were actually involved. The cases in Livability Court were generally from the Police Department. Ms. Cofield said that criminal bench trials were held Monday through Friday. Defendants who were incarcerated were brought before a judge within 24-48 hours. She referenced some statistics regarding the criminal bench trials regarding citations numbers. The challenges identified for criminal court included the inability to contact homeless victims, homeless defendants often not appearing, insufficient victim contact information, limiting numerous continuance requests, and equal access to justice. Chairman Shahid asked what took place during the jail video conferencing. Ms. Rico Flores stated that when they were arrested and had a surety bond, they had to appear before the court within ten days. They tried to do that even sooner, in about two days. During those hearings, they tried to allow them to be released. They found out if they were represented by an attorney and if they wanted a jury trial. Sometimes, they would enter a plea, but a lot of times they would ask for a lawyer. It gave them an opportunity to review the case and release the individual on a PR bond, which legally was the preferred method to give them an opportunity to appear in person and participate in a trial in person. Chairman Shahid said he had attended some of the meetings where they were trying to get the ‘low-level’ offenders out of the jail system as fast as possible. He asked if they allowed people to plead guilty through the video conferencing. Mr. Morrison said that they did if they thought the person understood what they were doing. Mr. Molony said he personally didn’t like that. He felt more comfortable 4 looking people in the eye. Chairman Shahid asked what they did for transport. Chief Reynolds said they had a transport team. Lieutenant Bruder said the transport team brought them if they had to appear before court. Chairman Shahid said that this had to be a big help in saving the Police Departments resources. Chief Reynolds said it did save resources, but it was also safer. Ms. Cofield stated that they also had traffic bench trials that were held Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. The Charleston Police Department officers had 50 citations that were assigned for their 30 minute time slot. Some of the challenges they had identified were the underutilization of the fifth week of the month, unbalanced scheduling, tickets not being evenly distributed throughout the week. One of the heavier days was Thursday for whatever reason. Ms. Rico Flores said that the officers let them know what days they could be in court and what their schedule was. Chairman Shahid asked if the courts were held on the same day if an officer wrote a ticket for both traffic and criminal court. Ms. Rico Flores said that they had different schedules. They would generally try to handle the charges at the same time. They could sometimes choose a date and that way they could do it all on the same day. Ms. Cofield referenced the Livability Court and the number of different cases that came through. Chairman Shahid asked what the 27 short term rental general cases were. Mr. Molony said that number seemed awfully low to him. Chairman Shahid said there were 27 cases under general, but they also had STR operating without a permit, and STR failure to list permit number, and advertising more than committed. He was just wondering what the violation under general consisted of. Mr. Molony said they were all what he called ‘low-hanging fruit’. They were all advertising cases in his opinion. That was the way it should be categorized. Ms. Downs said that when they got the summons in, it would have the ordinance itself and the description of it and that was what they used to enter it into the system. It was dependent on what had been put on the charge. Mr. Molony said the ordinance had a number of subsections. There was a subsection that dealt with advertising and that was the one that he normally saw. That was pretty much the only cases that Livability was bringing because they were so easy to prove. Ms. Cofield said that was something they could discuss in more detail, just to make sure the numbers were accurately matching. Councilmember Seekings said that would more helpful. That was one of the things they would have to answer to on the political side, whether the ordinance was working, and which sections. Ms. Cofield said that the homeless court was a voluntary program that offered opportunities to address the underlying barriers and provide resources that would help to overcome homelessness, in addition to possible dismissal or reduction in pending cases for defendants. The court proceedings were held at One80 Place every fourth Thursday of the month. She referenced some programs and resources used for this court. Some of the challenges the homeless court faced included limited funding, participants failing to follow through, losing 5 contact, and/or limited number of service providers. She gave an overview of the jury trials which were scheduled two or three weeks a month. A jury term trial lasted one week. As of August 7, there were 396 defendants with jury trial cases pending, with a total of 542 cases pending. They were working to try to implement new processes to bring those numbers down. Chairman Shahid asked what the oldest case was. Ms. Cofield said they had cases that dated back to 2016. Ms. Rico Flores said they were working very hard to clean up the 2016, 2017, and 2018 cases because they were headed into a new year and it was important to keep the jury trial moving in interest of the victims and defendants. If you held a case for too long, they couldn’t find anyone and it compromised the integrity of the case. Ms. Herdina said that some of those cases were deferred or continued because of other general sessions. Ms. Rico Flores said that was a very low percentage. They had been tracking the percentages for a number of months. Very few were related to general sessions. Councilmember Seekings said those were big numbers. Ms. Cofield said that currently, they had two jury trial terms per month. For the next year, they were thinking about having one week of jury trial terms and the second week being pre-trial. Hopefully, with the pre-trial week, that would give everyone an opportunity to come to some resolution to resolve the cases and get them off the docket. Councilmember Seekings asked how long it would take them to clear that many cases. Ms. Rico Flores said it depended on the individuals involved, how firm the judge was, how hard the prosecutor worked to connect with the victims, there was a lot of coordination to bring a case to conclusion. It depended on how much time they gave it. They had to keep pressing people and get everyone into court. They had to keep the pressure and be firm and it was dependent on how quickly they could coordinate and get everybody in to either try it or plead. Mr. Molony said that from his perspective, if someone didn’t show up when the jury trial term was called, then they waived their right to a jury trial. He was working on a letter right now that would say they waived the right to a jury trial, so your case has been set for a bench trial, and if you don’t show up to that, it would be tried in their absence. That was a problem, because the question was what happened if someone didn’t show up. Were they entitled to a trial in their absence with a jury? That took a lot of time. Ms. Rico Flores said that was a catch and what made it difficult, because court administration said they couldn’t waive their right to a jury trial by checking a form. So, they had to go through with the jury trial. People came month after month and the cases weren’t being tried or going forward so it placed a tremendous burden on defendants and victims to have to keep returning repeatedly. People would wear down after awhile and would stop coming. People moved and they lost contact. That was why it was an important issue that they needed to get a handle on. Councilmember Seekings said he had been waiting to see that slide. He always wondered what the back log was and why it was going on. The numbers were striking. The other strain on resources was the officers that had to come. He asked if they kept statistics about the number of cases that had been continued and how many times that had happened. Ms. Rico Flores said they did. They 6 could run a report. Councilmember Seekings said that a continuance is something that they worried about. People would play the game and play the system. Councilmember Wagner asked if they could do anything with the ordinance and what the rules were. Mr. Morrison said the constitution gave people the right to a jury trial. They couldn’t change that. They were the ‘low man’ on the totem pole. All of the lawyers who came in practiced in other places, so they would get a letter saying they were going to be in general session, so they would get a continuance. They also had a lot of people who requested jury trials for things like a two point speeding ticket or a seatbelt ticket. He would tell people not to do the jury trial and continue it. They could work it out and get rid of it. If they couldn’t work it out, then they would put it on a jury trial. Ms. Rico Flores stated she would follow up and get them to come in on different days. Typically, they were available at some point during the week. There were very few lawyers that were booked for the entire week. It was a lot of work because of the follow up required to get them to come to court. Councilmember Seekings said that with the pending DUI cases, all of them required having a police officer there. That added another layer. Ms. Rico Flores said that she thought they had developed a reputation as a court that people didn’t have to come to. They had allowed it to perpetuate for so long that people had become accustom to a lack of enforcement. It was something they needed to turn around. Chief Reynolds stated it was hard for him to get used to a system where someone with a seatbelt violation could demand a jury trial. From a legislative side, that needed to be changed, but it was easier said than done. When he looked at the numbers, his perspective was that they were problematic. Many of those people had multiple offenses and were still reoffending. They were out in the community and were going to hurt someone. If he had anything to do with it, the numbers would continue to go up because they were doing a lot of training in the area of DUI enforcement. They had a problem in the Country, and specifically in the City with impaired driving. It was hard for him to wrap his head around the numbers, because it was clear there was no end game and no reasonable outcome. He didn’t know what the answer was, but it was a significant problem. He had gotten a call from the news channel, and she had asked him if he knew that the defendant in the Selma case had broke his probation in May, and he was back in jail. That was the first he had found out about it. He wasn’t blaming anybody, but they needed to pay close attention to some of the cases. They needed to have a better outcome. The numbers weren’t good and there was a lot more that they needed to do. Chairman Shahid said that he understood how the system operated. When the initial ticket was made, the inclination of whether someone wanted a continuance, he would put in for a jury trial. That would go into a different category. If someone wanted a jury trial, they could take a time out, ask for a continuance and put it on the docket, and if they couldn’t work it out then they could put it up for a jury trial or pre-trial. Chief Reynolds said that they worked well together and their staff was amazing at working with the officer’s schedules. However, he had 7 heard that they wanted to try to lower the numbers by getting an agreement. He understood that, but he also had a problem with it. They needed to be held accountable for their actions. They needed to have an incentive for justice. He didn’t think they should all be pled out. They wanted to incentivize officer’s doing their jobs and this was an area where they could have a better use of an officer’s time than sitting multiple times per case with no outcome. He didn’t have the solution, but it was good to talk about it. Chairman Shahid said that was why he wanted to have the discussion. It was no one’s fault. Defendants have a constitutional right to a jury trial. So, they had to follow that. But, he thought this was just pure case management. He wanted them to come up with a plan and report back on what they needed. If they needed more judges, they could help with that. They wanted to make things easier on the court system, because it impacted the Chief’s department and the surrounding community. He wanted them to come back in about 60 days and tell them what they needed from City Council to help them get a handle on the number. It might take another judge to just have a whole month of jury trials. This was a staggering number. Ms. Rico Flores said that when they had so many cases, people tended to compromise and lower their expectation on the outcome of the case. She agreed that a DUI conviction should probably have some jail time, but due to the overwhelming number of them, they were more likely to bring that expected sentence down from what it should be. She had seen cases that weren’t even following the minimum law which was 48 hours of community service or 48 hours in jail. She had seen them pled out to fines. They needed to have a better grasp of the case management and be able to get control the number of cases. Mr. Molony said he did this on Isle of Palms. They didn’t have this problem because they were vigorous. Lawyers came in and filed everything to make sure they had everything they needed. The legislature had tinkered with the DUI statute every year to the point where if they didn’t have adequate video or audio, it would be dismissed. They could deal with things ahead of time during the pre-trial. He didn’t have a problem putting people in jail. Councilmember Wagner asked if they could come back in thirty days, so they could get it within this budget cycle. Ms. Rico Flores said they could do that. Chief Reynolds said that a significant chunk of the cases had officers needing to go before the administrative law judge even before it got to court. If that didn’t happen, it affected the whole process. Councilmember Seekings said that not all DUI cases were created equal and some would have to get pled out if they wanted to get the numbers down. They had to clear the cases now. Councilmember Wagner asked how many of the cases were still even able to be prosecuted. Police Officers moved around all the time. That could be a good way to get rid of some of the cases. Ms. Herdina stated that one of the strategies of defendants was to continue a case as long as possible hoping that any number of things happened. From a case management standpoint, to prepare a DUI case for trial took a minimum of one week for a prosecutor because there was so much video and other evidence to go through. It was certainly a time management issue from the Prosecutors Office. Chairman 8 Shahid asked if they had a fulltime prosecutor. Ms. Herdina said they had two and the other two were contract. They covered all the different courts except the livability cases and short term rental cases. Chairman Shahid said this was important and he was glad they had the conversation. They could regroup in about thirty days to see what they needed and if they needed a dedicated jury trial or DUI trial prosecutor. Chief Reynolds said he thought that would make a huge difference. Chairman Shahid said they were there to help. Councilmember Seekings asked how they carved out monies that they collected on fines. They didn’t get to keep all of that. That was where they needed to get the legislative enactment. Chairman Shahid said years ago, there was an ordinance regarding careless driving. They kept 100% of those monies because it was a City ordinance. Someone caught onto it, and said a chunk of the money had to go to the State. Ms. Rico Flores said that for the DUI, the fine would be $992 for a .08. The conviction fee was $187. All of the $187 went to the State and they kept the balance of it. Ms. Herdina said that they could come back and report on that. Councilmember Seekings said they needed to work on that. Chief Reynolds said there were some good things in the legislature that M.A.D.D. and others had been talking about. There was an ignition interlocking device for these cases. It was evidence based and a practice that many other States had adopted. Some of the push back on that piece was that the defendants had to pay for the device. They could refine this effort and the whole idea was to save lives. They continued to lose people to this issue, and it was surprising that they didn’t talk more about it. They weren’t progressing as effectively or efficiently as they could. Ms. Cofield said that they had challenges with their security officers. They had five security officers that were assigned to the court. Some of the challenges were that only one of them was armed. They were only there until 5 p.m. There was little to no communication with them. She had been in contact with their contractor to discuss them going to active shooting classes so that they would know what to do and how to protect them. She had been unsuccessful with that. Chief Reynolds said they had good expertise and good people that he would offer to them. Chairman Shahid said the building also housed the DMV and asked if they split the cost with the State on security officers. Ms. Cofield said they were paid out of the court budget. Mr. Jerue said he thought they were in the process of rebidding the entire security contract out for all of the officers. Ms. Cofield said that with the software, they were looking to update the system to CMS (Court Management System). Another challenge was with the parking lot. There was a luxury apartment complex next to the court and some of the residents had been parking in the court’s parking spaces. They had reserved spaces for judges, but staff did not. She had received information that once the arms had been activated, it should eliminate the problem, if not reduce it altogether. Another current need they had was for new cubicles which they had 9 requested in the budget this year. The ones they currently had were thirteen years old and falling apart. Ms. Cofield said thank you to all of the court staff and Judges. They all had gotten together and put the presentation together. Chairman Shahid said it was helpful for them. Ms. Hayes said she had worked for the court since 1991 and this was the first presentation they had done. Chief Reynolds said he wanted to publically acknowledge Ms. Cofield’s hard work. They had a great relationship with the court. They had identified ways they could be better as far as outcomes, but relationally, their responsibility and relationships were excellent. Update on Racial Bias Audit – Chief Luther Reynolds Deferred to the next Committee meeting. An ordinance to amend Chapter 2, Section 56, to expand the responsibilities of the Public Safety Committee to include the review of judicial candidates nominated by the Mayor. Deferred to the next Committee meeting. An ordinance to amend Chapter 19, Section 71, of the Code of the city of Charleston, South Carolina, to require that accidents involving injury to or death of any person or damage to a vehicle or other property damage must be immediately reported to the Police Department Mayor Tecklenburg left at 3:51 p.m. Mr. Ruemelin stated they had a case where a pedicab driver was hit was a driver. The question came up afterwards of why the person wasn’t charged with a hit and run. The reason was that the laws as they were written didn’t provide for the pedicab to be classified as a vehicle. As long as there was no injury, there was no obligation for the driver to stop and exchange information. With this, they were adding to the definition that if someone was in an accident with a vehicle (including a pedicab) you had an obligation to stop and report it. On the motion of Councilmember Seekings, seconded by Councilmember Wagner, the Committee voted unanimously to approve the above amended ordinance. Having no further business, the Committee adjourned at 3:55 p.m. 10