Paperwork snafu = month behind bars
When Jennifer Dowell White went before a Charlottesville grand jury August 20, jury members declined to indict her on charges of obtaining money under false pretenses. However, she wasn’t released from jail until today — more than a month later — because the paperwork was that would have freed her was “misplaced” in the Charlottesville Circuit Court clerk’s office– and attorneys say this is not an uncommon occurrence.
In a special hearing this afternoon, Judge Cheryl Higgins released White, 39, on her own recognizance. Her attorney, Valerie L’Herrou, says, “It’s been an ongoing problem for us to get indictments from the clerk’s office. We have requested this several times, including in writing.”
Last Friday, L’Herrou discovered that the grand jury had not returned a true bill of indictment against White. At 4:15pm — minutes before the clerk’s office closed — she and her boss, public defender Jim Hingeley, went to the Charlottesville clerk’s office to ask for White’s grand jury paperwork. “It took around 20 minutes before they could locate the file,” says L’Herrou.
The two public defenders immediately contacted Commonwealth’s Attorney Dave Chapman, who said in court he couldn’t find the grand jury paperwork either. Because all the judges were at a conference in Northern Virginia, Tuesday afternoon was the earliest they could schedule a bond hearing.
“It’s wrong,” says friend-of-the-family Curtis Byers. “If there are no more charges, you should be able to walk out. It’s their responsibility– the Commonwealth and the clerk’s. I’m tired of it. I’ve seen it for a long time, and something needs to be done. Somebody’s not doing their job.”
“I didn’t know what this was all about,” said Charlottesville Clerk Paul Garrett when he was asked in court if he could fax over paperwork for the judge’s signature to release White. “I’m not going to talk about it,” Garrett said to a reporter.
This isn’t the first time Garrett’s gotten heat recently. The State Compensation Board revoked $52,000 in funding for a database after Garrett falsely claimed three times that his office’s records were online, the Daily Progress reported in April.
“I don’t know what the problem is,” says Liz Murtagh, deputy public defender, who requested the indictment on September 6. “We had more difficulty this time.”
Attorneys from the public defender’s office listed other cases where defendants were held in jail because the paperwork was not processed from the clerk’s office. In one case, a man was found not guilty and his family called his attorney, Llezelle Dugger, the next day to say he still hadn’t been released, says Dugger. And in another case, a defendant sentenced to time served spent extra time in jail.
“It’s concerning,” says L’Herrou. “People are being held longer than they should be. And it’s not just a problem with our office. Other attorneys say they have the same problem.”
“It’s outrageous; it’s unconscionable,” says Murtagh. If Hingeley and L’Herrou hadn’t gone down to the clerk’s office, White would have been in jail unitl October, she adds.
“All of this came from someone dropping the ball,” says Byers.
[…] are. State climatologist resigns post, cites pressure over controversial views on global warming. Paperwork snafu leads to extra month in jail for Charlottesville woman. Winchester issues voluntary […]
Unbelievable. THis guy needs to be recalled. He should not be allowed to finish his 8 year term, which he is somewhere in the middle of. How many more innocent people will serve time because of his callous incompetence?
Well, what in the heck has L’Herrou been doing since August 20th? Friday was Sept. 21. Didn’t she wonder where was her client? Didn’t she wonder if her client had another court date? Is the clerk’s office in Richmond? No, it’s conveniently in the basement of the very courthouse where they practice. It couldn’t have been that inconvenient for Murtagh, Hingeley, or L’Herrou to go to the counter and ask for the records. Have they been on vacation for a month? Sounds like passing the buck to me. Yeah, yeah, over-worked, underpaid. The clerk’s office is not supposed to serve as the secretary to every defense lawyer in town. The public defender’s office has far more complaints from its clients than the clerk’s office has. Perhaps a little less time being community activists and more time on the job?
To Cville Eye
If you read the article, the indictments were requested several times:
******
Section from paper for your info:
Valerie L’Herrou, says, “It’s been an ongoing problem for us to get indictments from the clerk’s office. We have requested this several times, including in writing.”
******
If the file is unavailable, not where it is suppose to be, for the attorneys to look at in the Clerk’s office, how can they get copies of the indictments or whatever else they may need? If you send written notification to the Clerk of the Court asking for the indictments this was also stated in the article and done approximately 20 days before this hearing) and still do not receive it, how is the attorney suppose to know what is going on?
Even the Clerk of Court did not know where this file was. It took him about 20 minutes to locate the file while Mr. Hingeley and Ms. L’Herrou waited in his office (this was also stated in the article). Had Mr. Garrett looked for this file between September 6 and September 26 as the letter requested?
It sounds to me like Mr. Garrett needs to do his job and do it correctly. An indictment being “NOT a True Bill” should never of been filed away and not given to the attorney when requested several times, and it was requested several times. I do not believe this is “passing the buck.” It is doing what needed to be done for a client who was being held wrongfully at the jail and was done as soon as Ms. L’Herrou found out that the indictment was returned NOT a true bill.
Concerned,
You are confusing supposedly different instances with different clients. Request for something in writing? If something is that important, then you walk downstairs and get it! The building is handicapped accessible. I’ll bet they would have thought of something to do if their paycheck had been 20 days late, hmmm? Passing the buck. Plain and simple. Answer this, how many times have they had to go to court and complain to a judge that they were unable to prepare for court because they were unable to get information from the clerk’s office?
I am reminded of the time that the public defender’s office decided that its employees were not makeing enough money being on the state’s payroll and were asking the city and county to add to the pot out of their local general funds. At the city meeting, Mr. Hingeley was asked about particulars included in HIS letter of request. He was unable to answer ANY of the questions. Why, I don’t know. The letter had his signature. He just stood there listening to some city employees trying to interpret a letter they had not received. He didn’t get the money, thank God. I also recall some vague altercation he had with a local judge that ended in his not practicing in his court. Who knows, with this kind of record, maybe the mirrors in the public defender’s office have been taken down.
The entire criminal justice system is melting down slowly. The above event will be the norm soon instead of the exception. EVERYBODY involved is to blame.
Meeow! Paul comes out with claws showing! Girl fight!!
There have been quite a few concerns about that office held until now in “secret” among conscientious defense,prosecutors,other attorneys
and also conscientious law officers…yes, there are some left. The whole system has not “melted down”.
Garrett has quite a reputation of being difficult to
get along with and some of his staff are questionably competent.
A fact until now unexposed. I side with the defenders.
“A fact until now unexposed” - not even good gossip and innuendo. Nothing goes “unexposed” this long in Court Square, particularly when judges are involved. Jeeps knows that’s a lot of crap.
“conscientious defense,prosecutors,other attorneys” Are you telling me that they are so conscientious that they would let this situation go on for this long when their clients’ well-being is at stake and their professional reputations, too? For what unearthly reason? Go along to get along? Then who’s incompetent? You’re not making any sense. Next thing you know we’ll be hearing that somebody from the Public Defender’s office will be running for the clerk’s job since it pays a lot more. People let’s keep this discussion real. The clerk does not represent the client, her lawyer does and it’s apparent to me that I DON’T WANT HER TO BE MY LAWYER!
Jeeps, Paul Garrett is not hard to get along with. Not sure where you arrived at this conclusion. But I am afraid you are correct about some of the staff.
Cville Eye, the defense attorney has nothing to with the paperwork required to get a person into jail or out of jail. If the Grand Jury refused to indict the subject, the Commonwealth Attorney should have followed up and made damn sure the paperwork arrived at the jail in a timely fashion and the person was released from jail. Otherwise it becomes false imprisonment. The only thing the defense attorney could have done was poke an electric prod up Dave Chapman’s butt to get him on the ball. Dave Chapman is part of the meltdown taking place in the criminal justice system IMHO!
Cville Eye
I am only talking about the article above and the one client, Jennifer White. Do you have more inside information? Do you work for Paul Garrett? Do you know first hand of other problems with the Circuit Court Clerk? As for the letter in writing, any good lawyer would want a paper trail. If you request something several times verbally and get no where, then the next logical step is to request the same in writing. This is your proof of the request. As for appearances in Court for other cases and their problems with the Clerk’s office, sounds to me like you know more than I do. Were you there? The rest of your comments just sounds to me like you have it in for Mr. Hingeley. It has nothing at all to do with this case. Stick to the facts. As I understand it, the Public Defender office requested verbally several times copies of the indictments, they were not given to the Public Defender office, the Public Defender office writes a letter requesting the indictments, still they do not receive the indictments, on Friday, September 26 the Public Defender learns that the indictment came back NOT a true bill. They immediately rushed to the Clerk’s office. Still they had to wait until the file was found. The Clerk did not know where the file was in his own Clerk’s office, how was the lawyer suppose to know and retrieve copies of the indictments in the file? Then a hearing was immediately scheduled. That is the facts of this case.
I do not recognize Mr. Garrett when I see him. By the way, just because you read it in the paper (one-sided interviews)does not make it the truth (there are always at least three sides). It is clear, Concerned, that you know some one at the P. D. office because you can relate what actually supposedly happened blow by blow. It is certainly difficult to determine the exact course of events from a cursory reading of the article. Maybe you work with them or are married to one? It seems Concerned and Captain Obvious say two different people are responsible for handling the release. Conerned, please offer a resolution to this discrepancy. If it is not the responsibility of the P. D. to process the failed indictment and its ramifications, then why were they asking for the records? Why didn’t they just call the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office and request the information? If they don’t know his number they can just call city information at 970-3101 and be put through. And, yes, I have a great deal of problems with Mr. Hingeley or anyone else who is asking for hundreds of thousands of tax payer dollars on his face alone and only answering the question “Who’s asking?” Don’t you?
Yes, I have a great deal of respect for the lawyers at the Public Defender office. The facts listed were the facts in this article. And yes you are right, there are several sides to the story. However, you should not hold your personal grudge for Mr. Hingeley against the entire Public Defender office. You, nor I, know exactly what has happened.
Clearly, Cville Eye has a huge stake here, based on the viciousness of the statements about something s/he claims to know nothing about… but clearly does. I suspect Cville Eye is Mr. Garrett.
The fact of the matter is, the procedures that were supposed to be followed were not. No one pointed any fingers at any individual person until Cville Eye started doing so. Let’s figure out how to keep this from happening again (as Ms. White suggests in this am’s Progress) rather than slandering people and talking about cattle prods.
Mr. Chapman stated in court (see above) that he didn’t have the paperwork either. Ordinarily, his office does. So, what happened here? If paperwork is locked in a sealed cabinet (as Mr. Garrett claims in today’s Progress) and a person’s atty cannot get access to it despite repeated attempts and requests, then, what is supposed to be done?
Indictments are not supposed to be sealed, by law, unless the commonwealth’s atty requests it and good cause is shown for it. So, is Mr. Garrett sealing indictments on his own? or is the commonwealth requesting they be sealed? and where’s the good cause?
all food for thought.
I suspect Cville Eye is Mr. Garrett.
Please that would be the funniest thing EVAR!
Voice of Reason, what started off this thread was Lucky’s statement “Unbelievable. THis guy needs to be recalled. He should not be allowed to finish his 8 year term, which he is somewhere in the middle of. How many more innocent people will serve time because of his callous incompetence?” Try putting some reasoning to that. No matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to be more vicious than Lucky. Concerned, I didn’t ask you how you felt about the people at the P. D. office, I asked about your relationship with the people who there. I guess I shouldn’t expect a clear and concise answer. Voice, if I am Mr. Garrett, then I must not be able to find myself in the morning in order to get to work. Maybe that’s the problem.
From today’s Daily Progress at http://dailyprogress.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=CDP/MGArticle/CDP_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1173352906911&path= “Usually in such circumstances, the prosecutor and the defense attorney immediately schedule a bond hearing and the defendant is released if no other charges are pending.” That’s attributed to Dave Chapman, not me. Now, Voice, apply some reasoning to that. Where is the clerk in that process? If Garrett is at fault, then what is Chapman apologizing about? Re-read the article.
ah, yes, indeed… where is the clerk in that process? And why DID Mr. Chapman say it, and not you?
One of the things I have learned in my long life, is that an acknowledgement of responsibility, an apology and a promise of how things will be fixed will go a very long way. People will forgive, and eventually, forget. It may be painful, but that’s the way of things. But, it has to be sincere, and things must actually change.
You may not be old enough to remember Harry Truman’s sign: The Buck Stops Here — but I am. A good motto, I believe.
Cville Eye
“That’s attributed to Dave Chapman, not me.”
So as I see it: me = Cville Eye = Paul Garrett.
Reminds me of the juror who found the defendant guilty because he showed no remorse.
Anyone who remembers the “Hot Seat” interview with Paul Garrett in the Hook a few years back will know Cville Eye is not him. Cville Eye seems to be able to express his ideas coherently.
I dubt very seriously if Paul Garrett has time to engage in a silly debate here on a daily basis. Paranoia is a very dangerous trait, people!
OK, the government charges and incarcerates someone then attempts to indict them. The indictment fails to go through and it is somehow the defense attorney’s fault that the government is still holding them without any charge. That is garbage, Mr. Chapman and Mr. Garrett should have immediately notified counsel that the indictment had failed. They are responsible.
PS. Garrett has always been lazy, incompetent and arrogant. I challenge anyone to tell me a positive story about an experience they had dealing with him.
Kathy is right on target here. The government put her in jail. Once the government no longer had any hopes of prosecuting the charge (no indictment), it is the government’s responsibility to make she is released ——>>> forthwith.
I hope she collects about $50,000 in a lawsuit for her 30 extra days in jail.
Paul, I mean Cville Eye. Look at the times of your posts: 2:44pm, 4:10pm, 12:57 am (having trouble sleeping, something on your mind?) 11:06am, 3:10pm and 4:12pm.
Just a suggestion but you might want to consider actually working during the day rather than blogging, that way more people might actually be released from jail when they are supposed to.
Anyway, happy blogging Paul.
No, I am retired. You wouldn’t have time to blog if you were not lazing your time away over at the Public Defender’s office spewing out a lot of hot air. It takes far more intelligence than you apparently have to be a smart mouth.
Ouch, sounds like it is too bad you are retired, you sound like such a joy to work with. And, sorry, no PD here, just someone who knows far more than you about the situation. Unless you are really Paul Garrett,
Then you must be Dave Chapman or Ms. White. Ms. White, don’t worry, the judge will probably sentence you to time spent when you are found guilty for bilking those people out of their money with this obviously phony Wedding Expo scam. And you probably won’t have to make restitution. And you can go back to spending your time jawing over at the P. D. office. Take it from me, if they were really your friends over there, they would have wondered where you were for a month and started looking for you.
Whoever Cville Eye is, he obviously was abused as a child. otherwise, he wouldn’t be spewing this hate. I’m sorry, Cville Eye, for whatever happened to you. I hope you get counseling. In the meantime, stop the hating, and start taking care of your own emotional needs. Go out for a walk in this beautiful weather and take a few deep breaths. You’ll feel so much better!
Cville Eye, give Paul a kiss for me tonight when you go to sleep.
Woohoo = Kathy = Ms. White.
I’d like to try to clear the air with a factual account of what I know about the case of the missing paperwork. To be sure, this is my own perspective, so if you are reading this, please judge accordingly.
What does the public defender office, or any other defense counsel, expect of the clerk when it comes to filing bills of indictment returned by the grand jury? We expect the clerk to give us prompt access to the indictments of our clients. These are public documents. Just by way of comparison, in Albemarle County the clerk’s office routinely makes copies of indictments available for public inspection by the next day after the grand jury meets. It’s not that hard to do.
C’ville Eye says “If something [the indictment]is that important, then you walk downstairs and get it!” Here’s what happened. Shortly after the indictment was given to the clerk on August 20 to be filed, staff from the public defender office did walk downstairs to the clerk’s office and asked to see the indictment. Despite several verbal requests over the course of several days, the clerk refused to permit the staff person to see the indictment. This continuing refusal prompted the Deputy Public Defender on September 6 to make a formal written request to see the indictment. The written request and several follow-up contacts with the clerk’s office produced no response until late afternoon, September 21, when Paul Garrett told a secretary from my office that the grand jury had marked the indictment “not a true bill,” meaning the evidence was insufficient for the case to go forward. The secretary was in the clerk’s office on September 21 trying again to get information about the indictment. On this occasion Paul Garrett did not let the secretary see the indictment and make a copy of it.
After returning from the clerk’s office to the public defender office the secretary immediately reported this information to Ms. White’s attorney, Valerie L’Herrou, who immediately told me. Valerie and I left immediately for the clerk’s office to get a copy of the indictment. It was clear we needed to take action to get Ms. White released from jail, but we needed the written document itself, and not just what Paul Garrett said about it, before we could proceed in court.
An assistant clerk was unable to locate the indictment when we asked to see it. She then asked Paul Garrett to get it for us. Paul was stumped. I observed him pulling out file drawers and looking on his assistants’desks for the missing indictment. He even went upstairs to the judge’s chambers to see if perhaps the judge had snatched the indictment out of the clerk’s office. The indictment was not in the judge’s chambers. Finally after about 20 minutes Paul located the indictment and we were given a copy.
As reported in the Daily Progress (9/27/07), here is Paul’s explanation for why the indictment was not in the case file, where you ordinarily would expect to find it. “Garrett said he didn’t add the grand jury’s decision in White’s case to her case file, instead holding it with other, sealed indictments that hadn’t yet been served.” There is no reason or legal authority for a court clerk to block public access to an unsealed indictment, much less to hold the indictment back from counsel of record in the case.
As reported in the Daily Progress (9/27/07), Charlottesville prosecutor Dave Chapman defended Paul Garrett’s handling of the case, and blamed the public defender office for not being in court on August 20 when the grand jury noted its decisions and gave the indictments to the court to be filed. Chapman, who was in court when the grand jury wrapped up on August 20, said “they [the public defender office] can find out just as quickly as I can” what the grand jury did. It is important to note, however, that despite being in court on August 20, Chapman didn’t find out until September 21, when I called him, that the grand jury had found the evidence insufficient to proceed in Jennifer White’s case. Obviously, being in court when the grand jury finishes its session is not the solution to the problem.
This brings me back to where I started. All we are asking is for the clerk to give defense counsel prompt access to the indictments of the clients we represent. We don’t ask the clerk to send us copies. Instead, we go to the clerk’s office to see the indictments. We get the indictments out of our clients’ public files, if the clerk has put the indictments where they belong. We make the copies ourselves. Very little is asked of the clerk’s office staff. Judge for yourself if we are asking too much of Paul Garrett in cases where the liberty of people like Jennifer White is at stake.
1)”Shortly after the indictment was given to the clerk on August 20 to be filed, staff from the public defender office did walk downstairs to the clerk’s office and asked to see the indictment. Despite several verbal requests over the course of several days, the clerk refused to permit the staff person to see the indictment.” If this is true, this would have been the appropriate time for you, as head of the office, to intervene instead of allowing this to continue until September 6. The appropriate model in these cases is the head confronts his equal. I can understand if someone was on vacation. Otherwise, the Clerk’s office is at 315 E. Market and yours is a stone’s throw away around the corner at 409 Third Street N.E., close enough for stringed tin can communication.
2) Mr. Chapman says in the same article in the Progress from which you quote that the usual procedure is communication is established between his office and yours concerning failed indictments. I fail to find where you have addressed his statements in your detailing of events above. Is this the usual case as he says or is he purposely misleading the public?
3) I still do not believe that if this had been an attempt to get your paycheck or even that of one of your employees would your office followed the course of action that you outline above. This comment relates to #6 below.
4) If Ms. White has been wrongly imprisoned, can we expect a civil suit in the near future where all of this will be substantiated?
5)As far as I can tell from the articles, nothing has been documented except what is in one letter. Everything else said amounts to “he say/she say.” If this has been an on-going problem in the Clerk’s office, I suggest that future interactions with his office have a paper trail or at least a digital one, a point which also relates to my next comment.
6) Captain Obvious says above (I paraphrase hopefully) that the system is broken and nobody involved looks good. Ms. White’s cause certainly has not been advanced in this blog. This situation will NOT be rectified in the media. If you do not feel, because of past history, that your meeting with Mr. Garrett and Mr. Chapman to come to some kind of clarification or agreement on procedure would be useful, then follow your own suggestion of getting a judge to look at the matter. I sincerely hope that you do this for the benefit of the public that you all serve.
Thank you for responding.
Replying to Cville Eye’s last post, it sounds like you know I was on vacation. I was out of the country, and unable to receive telephone calls or emails, from August 28 to September 10. My deputy public defender acted appropriately in my absence to make a formal written request for access to a public document that Paul Garrett was withholding.
As for a meeting with Paul Garrett and Dave Chapman, I am willing. But is a meeting really necessary? All Paul needs to do is put indictments promptly in the file and let defense counsel see them. This is not a burdensome or complicated procedure, and it is done without apparent difficulty in other clerks’ offices.
CVille Eye, of course the city can expect a lawsuit. And the city will attempt to hide behind soverign immunity…. like spineless cowards who never accept responsibility for their own actions.
Please let me be on the jury that hears the lawsuit. Please.
Go sit in jail wrongufully for 30 days and tell me if you would sue.
[…] Provence of the Hook joins Coy Barefoot to talk about the woman who was wrongly held in prison for a month after a grand jury failed to indict her on charges of obtaining money on false pretenses. Listen […]
I say fire the clerk who thinks that he/she has the right to deny a Lawyer access to public documents. It is LONG past the time when C-ville can use paperwork shuffle as an excuse. That is reasonable for tiny towns where the clerks do everything, and big cities where the beaurcrats do nothing, but C-ville is right in the middle and has NO EXCUSE for this kind of screw up.FIRE SOMEBODY. TOMORROW!
Gi Joe
I agree with you except for the fact that Paul Garrett is an elected official and therefore can not be fired. He needs to be impeached. It sounds difficult but really is not. He only had a little of 2,000 votes so therefore you only need a little over 200 (10%) of registered voters in Charlottesville to sign a petition for impeachment and Good Bye Paul Garrett. Wouldn’t that be great!!
GI Joe and In Agreement, let’s get past the Paul Garrett thing. The commonwealth is who put the lady in jail. Once the commonwealth had nothing to hold her on it is their responsibility to see she is set free. Dave Chapman & Associates dropped the ball.
Captain Obvious–Dave Chapman did not drop the ball. He said in the bond hearing that he didn’t know that the grand jury meeting on August 20 found the evidence insufficient to indict Jennifer White. When I called Dave Chapman on September 21 to tell him the indictment was returned as “not a true bill,” Dave Chapman fully cooperated in expediting the bond hearing at which Jennifer White was released. He did this, I believe, because he was as interested in seeing justice done as I was. Dave Chapman is not the problem. The question remains why for a month Paul Garrett felt he was justified in concealing the indictment, that was a public document, from defense counsel, the prosecutor, and the public, despite repeated requests from defense counsel to see the indictment.
Jim, I’m sorry, but I disagree with you. No matter how cooperative the commonwealth may have been after the fact.
The commonwealth put this girl in jail. Once the commonwealth realized they had no case against her it is also their responsibility to see that she is released forthwith.
I am very familiar with the term “forthwith”, as I watched a judge ask a rookie cop why he held a defendant in custody for 7 hours before producing him before a magistrate. While the judge knew the answer to his own question, he wanted to hear it from the rookie cop. The rookie cop would never truthfully answer the question. The answer was the rookie cop had screwed up big time making a false arrest. He then held the defendant in custody for 7 more hours while he attempted to find a real crime to charge the suspect with. (There were witnesses to what this rookie was doing for 7 hours, a police Lt in an adjacent department refused all requests to get involved and help the rookie cop find a real crime) When this attempt to find a real crime failed, the rookie cop took the suspect to the magistrate’s office and committed perjury under oath. He was never charged or prosecuted for this perjury. And he is still a sworn police officer.
This is just one example of the screwed up system you are now defending in this debate. More likely than not, you will sooner or later be representing a client with this same officer testifying against your client. Too bad the judge I speak of (and other people employed in his department) can’t appear as your witness and state under oath that the officer is known to be an habitual liar.
I agree with Hingeley…this time
[…] White spent an extra month in jail when a grand jury did not indict her August 20, but her attorney couldn’t get that […]