Judge Brandon Cox Implementing New Ideas for More Efficient Court (Listen Here)

March 29, 2023
By: Dwayne Page

Seven months after taking office, DeKalb County General Sessions and Juvenile Court Judge Brandon Cox has settled into his new role.

In an interview with WJLE Tuesday, Judge Cox said that while the duties are challenging, he is enjoying being judge.

Listen here.

“I am enjoying it. It’s a challenge each day but I enjoy the different cases that are brought before me and seeing it from a different perspective,” said Judge Cox.

After having observed and participated in the court system as an attorney for several years, Judge Cox took the bench last September with some new ideas to hopefully bring more efficiency to the judicial system at this level and he has been able to put many of them in place including making changes to the court calendar.

A “Preliminary Hearing Docket” for contested cases is now held once a month in addition to the regular criminal court docket. One of the benefits is that it cuts down on the amount of time law enforcement officers have to spend in court on their cases thus saving the county money for overtime pay.

“One of the benefits that I think directly impacts the county is my new “Preliminary Hearing Docket” which I hold once per month. This docket is in addition to my regular criminal docket which is held every Thursday,” said Judge Cox. “The point of this docket is to schedule contested hearings. Prior to this special docket, law enforcement officers that had cases on the regular docket were often required to be in court each and every Thursday. That caused some officers to go over their allotted hours and would cost the county overtime pay. Since I have taken office, the officers are only required to be present when subpoenaed to be present for a hearing, or at the request of the district attorney. The result is that we no longer have officers sitting in court once a week awaiting a hearing that may not take place. The officers are no longer getting the overtime from their time in court, and thus the county is saving money. Most importantly, these officers can be on the road and in the county doing their jobs,” said Judge Cox.

In an effort to enhance security, Zoom video arraignments and docket calls are scheduled for inmates to prevent having them brought from the jail to the courthouse so often.

“On my Thursday Criminal Docket, there are between 6 and 20 persons that are incarcerated,” Judge Cox explained. “Previously, these individuals were shackled and hauled across the street to Court first thing. Many times, the inmates were brought over simply to have their case continued. They would also take up two or three rows of seats making it difficult to get others in the courtroom and making it difficult to properly secure the inmates from the public. Because of these issues, I have implemented video arraignments and docket calls. At the beginning of each docket, I call the jail docket via zoom, and we only bring over the inmates that are needed in person for hearings or to enter a plea. This reduces the number of inmates brought over significantly, and we often have only a handful brought over. This has freed up the courtroom gallery seating for the public and has made keeping the courtroom secure much simpler. It has helped speed the dockets along as well, and has reduced the distractions in court,” said Judge Cox.

The Juvenile Court docket has also been changed to keep School Resource Officers from having to make a court appearance during school hours except when subpoenaed to be present. The recent school shooting in Nashville serves as a reminder why school security is vitally important.

“We have all been saddened by the news of the shooting in Nashville at the private school,” said Judge Cox. “My prayers are with the families impacted and those young children. We are blessed in this county with some great School Resource Officers (SRO’s). But, sometimes they get taken away from their duties at the school. One of the reasons they would be removed from school was to attend juvenile court. I know the importance of having the SRO’s on campus and doing their job protecting the staff and students. Because of this, I have implemented changes to the juvenile court docket so SRO’s are not pulled from school. First, no SRO is required to attend court unless subpoenaed to be present. If they are needed during school hours, for a detention hearing or other emergency hearing, they will be permitted to attend via zoom or via telephone. Any regularly scheduled hearing that requires an SRO to be present will be scheduled after school hours. Additionally, my Youth Service Officer (YSO) will be responsible for going to the school to assist the SRO in filing the requisite charges for a youth committing a delinquent offense. No longer is the SRO required to leave the school and go to the Courthouse to file a petition,” said Judge Cox.

Recovery Court is now held each week on Tuesdays starting at 8 a.m.

“I have rearranged some other dockets including my Recovery Court Docket, which is now held every Tuesday morning,” Judge Cox said. “This docket sometimes moves quickly but more often than not our team takes a deep dive into each participant and the docket will run on into 10 a.m. or after. Previously, this would interfere with the Wednesday civil and juvenile dockets, causing those cases to not be called until around 10 a.m. or after. Since I have moved this docket, our Wednesday dockets begin promptly at 9 a.m. This benefits the lawyers and the litigants who are present in court. And it allows me and the Recovery Court Team to take the time necessary for each of our Recovery Court participants,” said Judge Cox.

Due to some of these changes, Judge Cox now holds court nearly every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday and more calendar changes may be necessary later.

“I will be making other minor changes to the calendar in the coming months as I am able to discern the best way to situate the differing dockets that I have and after getting input from other interested parties and groups. I know that we will be changing the Child Support Docket and Juvenile Delinquent Docket in July. These changes are necessary to reduce the clutter and conflict between dockets. And it will give me the opportunity to give each case and litigant the attention and deliberation they deserve,” Judge Cox concluded.

In Part 2 of his WJLE interview, Judge Cox will be announcing court policy changes in a later post here.

Listen here.

March 29, 2023
By: Dwayne Page

A Sparta man found with methamphetamine during a 2020 traffic stop by the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Department was sentenced Wednesday in DeKalb County Criminal Court.

48-year-old Marty Lance entered a plea to possession of a schedule II drug (methamphetamine) under 0.5 grams and received a six-year sentence all suspended to supervised probation. He was fined $2,000. The sentence is to run concurrently with a White County TDOC probation case.

Sheriff Patrick Ray said that on November 24, 2020 a detective pulled over a white 1995 Ford F-350 dually truck on Nashville Highway for passing a vehicle on a double yellow line. Lance, the driver, had a revoked license. After he consented to a search of his truck, the detective found a magnetic box under the bed of the truck which contained three baggies of a crystal-like substance believed to be methamphetamine. The baggies weighed 0.28 ounces, 0.43 ounces, and 1.03 ounces. Along with the narcotics were digital scales. Lance’s driver license was revoked on March 25, 1992 due to several DUIs and other offenses.

A total of $121 in cash and Lance’s truck were seized in the investigation.

23-year-old Skylar James Pease entered a plea to simple possession of a Schedule VI drug (Marijuana) and received a sentence of 11 months and 29 days suspended to supervised probation. He was fined $250.

43-year-old Daniel Hill entered a plea to violation of an order of protection. He received a sentence of 11 months and 29 days all suspended to supervised probation. Two other charges were dismissed.

March 28, 2023
By: Dwayne Page

How does the solid waste department operate in DeKalb County?

County Mayor Matt Adcock has issued a prepared “educational statement” to provide more information to the community on the issue including a decision he made last fall to establish new operating hours for the 12 convenience sites and having them all close on Sundays.

Some want the Sunday policy changed to better accommodate the public.

The following is County Mayor Adcock’s statement to the community in its entirety.

“Our new operating hours for the convenience sites are 9am to 6pm Monday through Saturday. These hours are to provide better availability for the largest amount of the community. Although we know that this will not be a perfect fit for some of our citizens, we do believe it fits for the most amount of people. We have heard a lot of satisfied citizens on how this schedule has helped them. The schedule is based off of the most used work schedules. People working a first shift job normally get off work in the hours of 4pm or 5pm. This is why the sites stay open till six. To give people an hour or two to get home and dispose of their waste. Second shift job employees can utilize the time from 10am till noon before they go into work. And then third shift job employees have time to go home and collect their trash to dispose of at 9am. Again, we do know it can’t be perfect for everyone, but we have tried to make it as convenient as possible for the most amount of people,” said Adcock.

“The transfer station that is operated by the Capital Waste Company also accepts trash at all times of operations. This transfer station is where all DeKalb County trash is taken. The trash is then shipped to the landfill located in Dayton, Tn. DeKalb County does not have an operational landfill anymore. Although the transfer station weighs trash for large industrial trash and charges companies for dumping there, citizens’ that are there with a reasonable amount of household trash can dump there for free. It is only charged if it is a large amount that is more than the average household would accumulate in a week,” Adcock continued.

“The transfer station is open from 6am to 2:30pm Monday through Friday. The Capital Waste Company does close their operation on Saturday and Sunday. It is open to the public, industrial companies, and commercial companies. The transfer station is located on Transfer Station Road, which is centrally located in the county. It is behind Tenneco off of Sparta Hwy just after the animal shelter. So, technically there is a way to dispose of household trash from 6am to 6pm in DeKalb County Monday through Friday. Saturday’s convenience sites are open from 9am to 6pm for the people that could not make it through the week. This weekend day alone causes a back up in the flow of the system,” said County Mayor Adcock.

“In further discussion, we see that Capital Waste is the company that transports the trash out of DeKalb County. Without their operation, trash accumulates at the transfer station and the convenience sites waiting to be removed from our county. Again, Capital Waste is closed on Saturday and Sunday. This creates an issue for DeKalb County. We try to dump all we can on Friday to prepare for Saturday so that it can hold us over till Monday when Capital Waste reopens on Monday to transfer the trash away. Before, when we were open on Sunday, our convenience site dumpsters were completely full and citizens were being turned away because of the trash that had accumulated. The other surrounding counties around us are all closed on Sundays, so their citizens would come and throw away their trash here as well. The trash would be falling on the ground of the convenience sites and falling out of moving trucks littering our county because of the overloaded trucks. Full dumpsters sat at the transfer station waiting to be taken from Saturday. And every dumpster in the county is full waiting to be emptied. Then on Monday the entire system would be extremely behind trying to catch up from the overloaded system. Many made the comment to just not let people without DeKalb vehicle tags enter the convenience site to mitigate the out of county people, but some people from other counties have tags from their primary residence but have a secondary home here and still pay DeKalb property taxes. Many employees made the statement that they would like Sundays off with their families. So, because of the logistical nightmare of keeping the operation open with the combination of giving our employees at least one confirmed day off without even having to worry about someone calling out so they have to go in, we made a decision to close all operations down on Sundays,” said Adcock.

“This decision worked just as planned. The employees are happier, and the operation of transferring trash has ran so much more smoothly. We no longer have out of county citizens filling up our dumpster cans. This saves us so much money alone. The county pays an average of $55 a ton to dispose of the waste. In the month of November, the county paid $99,148 in just that month alone on disposing county waste. In December, DeKalb County paid $101,521.18 to dispose of county trash. The county has only budgeted $985,000 to dispose of this waste. If you divide this 985,000 by 12, the number of months in a year. That only allows us to spend $82,083 a month in trash disposal. This is why we charge a fee to companies and to residents that dump anything larger than what a resident would normally accumulate in a week of household garbage. We have only budgeted for what a normal household would accumulate in a week. People abusing the system and out of county residents cause a problem to our overall budget. We are already in danger of going over our budget. Although we have taken precautionary steps to reduce trash collections and also try to offset it as much as possible with revenues, the rapidly increasing population is making it very difficult,” he said.

“When the DeKalb County Budget Committee meets soon, they will be given this information and more to see the great strain that has been placed on this topic. The fact that we must budget more for waste disposal is evident, but how is the next question. More people means more trash. The commission will have a big job to do moving forward to this new budget process, but I, Mayor Matt Adcock, will help in any way I can. James Goff, the Solid Waste Director, has been asked by myself to pull as many statistics as possible to help the upcoming budget committee make the best educated decisions they can. By keeping the commission informed on budget restraints, tonnage of trash accumulated, price per ton, and much more crucial information, that they can use to make better decisions that will positively impact DeKalb County,” County Mayor Adcock said.

“Also, I would like to enlighten all of our community members about our new furniture dumpsters located at the Shiney Rock convenience site located on the new Highway 56 south and the Snow Hill convenience site located on Nashville Highway. These were chosen because they had the amount of room to accommodate for it and they are centrally located”.

“Before we had asked everyone to take furniture to the transfer station where the workers can unload them onto a flat level concrete pad instead of trying to lift heavy furniture over someone’s head possibly injuring an employee or community member at one of the regular dumpsters at a convenience site. Now we have a furniture dumpster that has the door opened to throw small items of furniture inside without having to raise the furniture over anyone’s head. For very large items that you don’t believe would be easily placed into a dumpster or a large amount of furniture we would still ask for you to go to the transfer station to dispose of this,” added County Mayor Adcock.

If you have further questions, call the Solid Waste Department at 615-597-6071.

“Thank you to the community for all of your support and we will continue to strive to perform above the expectations of the public,” Adcock concluded.

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