Judge takes control of the jail | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This article originally appeared in the Beaufort Observer.

    As is required by law, ( N.C.G.S §162 39 ), Resident Superior Court Judge Wayland Sermons, Jr. issued a court order designating where the prisoners assigned to the Beaufort County Jail shall be housed pending the repairs that caused the re-location of the prisoners due to two successive power failures. Sermons ordered that the prisoners be housed in Pitt, Pamlico and the state Division of Adult Corrections (Bertie) as they have been since the weekend's evacuation of the Beaufort County Jail.

    State law provides that when an emergency exists that threatens the safety or security of prisoners that they be moved to other facilities. That decision is first made by the County Sheriff. The law then requires the Sheriff to report such evacuations to the Judge who then issues orders as to where the prisoners shall be housed. That is what Judge Sermons' order does.

    However, the order appears to go beyond what the law provides for. N.C.G.S § 162 39 does not authorize the judge to determine what the remedy for the cause of the evacuation shall be, but Judge Sermons specified that he would determine when and under what conditions the prisoners are returned to the Beaufort County Jail. He also retained jurisdiction for the purposes of entering such "further Orders as are necessary or required."

    This latter action appears to have created something of a conflict of jurisdictions. County Manager Randall Woodruff told the Observer just three hours before Judge Sermons issued his order that the County had put into place a plan to assess the cause of the electrical problems and that indeed an electrical contractor (Watson) had already diagnosed the problems and was developing a remedial plan. Woodruff told us that as soon as the repairs were made that no prisoners would be returned until the state jail inspectora have approved the re-opening of the facility. The inspector was schedule to visit the facility on Friday (6-14-13). Thus, it would appear on the face it that a question has now been raised about who has jurisdiction to determine when prisoners can be moved back into the facility.

    The Observer has learned from unofficial sources who spoke to us on the condition that their identities would not be revealed, tell us that the initial problem appears to have been centered on a circuit that had just been installed in the facility to operate a commercial grade (480 volt) dryer. Watson Electric indicated also that the breaker panel also had some problems but that those had apparently already been fixed or were in the process of doing so. We were told that a part of the problem appears to have been created by the fact that the operators of the jail had not been testing the electrical system or properly maintaining it and this may have been what caused the general outage after the circuit the dryer was on blew. Apparently the Sheriff's staff did not routinely check the backup power generators because they did not kick in when the power went off.

    Those conclusions were tentative, we were told. But Woodruff assured us that qualified electrical experts would assess the problems and repairs would be completed before any prisoner was allowed to return. He further stated: "we will not re-open the facility until the state jail inspector gives us the clearance that it is safe to bring the prisoners back."

    Apparently Judge Sermons was not informed of all of these happenings when Sheriff Jordan requested the order. Nonetheless, the order makes it Sermons' decision rather than the state's decision when the jail may be reopened and under what conditions. Should be interesting if the jail inspector, the engineers, the Sheriff and the judge, as well as the Board of Commissioners, are not in agreement. Click here to read the order.