Weekend Court Sessions?

The idea of arraigning prisoners on weekends, rather than only on weekdays, has come up several times in the last few years but has never gone beyond what they call the mentioning stage.

It is worth pursuing, however, if for no other reason than that it may well help reduce the number of prisoners in the already overcrowded Orange County jail system.

Prisoners booked on the weekends must wait until Monday to appear before a judge to be formally charged with the suspected crimes that landed them in jail. That not only swells the jail population but also keeps people, some of them innocent, behind bars longer than necessary.

The idea of weekend arraignments has been raised again, and this time there is good cause for optimism that it will finally receive the serious consideration that it deserves. That’s because the idea comes from a judge--not just any judge, but Judge Robert E. Thomas, who presides over the Santa Ana Municipal Court.

The county administrative office has reacted quickly, and appropriately, in launching a study to help determine exactly how much weekend arraignments might affect the county’s jail population and what it would cost to operate courtrooms on the weekend. Also to be determined is precisely what the law would allow judges to do on what is considered a “non-judicial” day. Judges can work on the weekends if they want to, but apparently there is some question under the law about whether they could sentence prisoners who enter guilty pleas on a Sunday because it is considered a court holiday.

The Sunday restriction, if it is determined to be law, shouldn’t, however, scuttle plans to hold weekend arraignments. The courts can always seek legislative changes, and in the meantime sentences might be levied on Saturdays. Perhaps guilty pleas could be accepted and, in minor cases when a judge determined that the prisoners would return to court as ordered, they could be released to return for sentencing during the week.

Judge Thomas has indicated a willingness to pursue weekend arraignments. Presiding judges in the county’s four other Municipal Court districts might be willing to do so too. At least one other, Judge J. Michael Beecher in the West Orange County Municipal Court District, has said he would personally support the approach. It should be tried out to ease the shortage of jail space, to ease crowded court calendars and to keep people from needlessly spending a weekend in jail waiting for a judge to hear their cases.