VIDEO HEARINGS HALT PROCESSIONS TO COURT

JACKSON, Mo. -- The lines of prisoners shuffling each week between Cape Girardeau County's jail and courthouse have disappeared.

The rows of "chain gangs" wearing orange uniforms and shackled at the ankles ended when the county began video hearings for prisoners last week.

Judge Gary Kamp worked through his video court docket of seven prisoners in about 10 minutes on Thursday.

One after another, the prisoners moved in front of a camera in the jail's video arraignment room to answer Kamp's questions. Their movements were shaky due to a split-second time delay, but their voices were clear and audible.

Kamp's court is the first in Southeast Missouri to use video arraignments.

Managing inmates' legal affairs through a computer screen hasn't changed his job much, Kamp said. But an investment of about $4,000 by the county will make a great difference for attorneys, sheriff's deputies and inmates.

The state public defender's office, which handles most prisoners' cases, has worked out a new system with the sheriff's department that should shorten incarcerations by a week to 10 days, Kamp said.

The reduction comes from consolidating various legal processes that take place between an arrest and setting a preliminary hearing date, said Kent Hall, head of the county's public defender's office.

Following the video arraignment, an attorney is assigned to prisoners and can conduct initial interviews in the jail instead of waiting for them to be moved from the courtroom to their cells, Hall said. Prior to this, prisoners would have to wait an additional week or so between their first appearance before a judge and having a date set for a preliminary hearing.

"At court, it wasn't possible to get together with them," Hall said. "So we feel like we'll be able to give better, more timely legal advice."

With prisoner housing costing the county about $25 a day, Sheriff John Jordan anticipates a considerable savings.

Start-up costs were kept down since an existing but unused fiber optic phone line to the courthouse was dedicated to video hearings, Kamp said.

Security for deputies and the prisoners has also improved, Jordan said.

"The chain gangs that everybody loved to see go to court were unsafe for inmates, too," he said. "If one guy on the chain gang falls or is hit by a car, everybody gets injured."

With groups of up to 35 prisoners walking with two deputies as escorts, a potential for problems always existed, Jordan said.

The walks between jail and court and close quarters in the courtroom allowed narcotics and other contraband to be smuggled into the jail despite security measures. Kamp has witnessed drug transactions in his courtroom, he said. Cutting down contact with the public will change this, Jordan said.

Hall agreed that the courtroom will be less chaotic, and his clients will avoid humiliation from the media's cameras recording the walks to court, which led some to refer to the inmates in bright orange as "spring flowers."

"It's not in the client's best interest to have to hold up his hands to hide his face when he hasn't been convicted of anything," Hall said.