News

'Our courthouse is just plain full'

Architectural drawing shows a 5-story addition north of the Grove Street Courthouse.

By Lightning Reports, Published: September 23, 2023

The highest ranking judicial system officials who work in the 1995 Henderson County Courthouse day in and day out delivered impassioned support last week for a $215 million renovation-expansion that they said is needed to administer everything from family court to adoptions to murder trials.

“One of the hats I wear,” as Clerk of Superior Court, is the job of managing the space for hearings and trials, J. Tyler Ray told Henderson County commissioners. “And I'll tell you, our courthouse is just plain full.”

Joining Ray to implore Henderson County commissioners to vote in favor of the project were District Attorney Andrew Murray, Chief Public Defender Beth Stang and Chief District Court Kim Gasperson Justice. Peter Knight, the chief resident Superior Court judge for Henderson, Polk and Transylvania counties, wrote a letter in support of the expansion.

“We all know if you voted today to expand for a new courthouse it’s going to be years in the making,” Murray told the board during its regular monthly meeting on Wednesday. “Jails are filled by me and jails are evacuated by me. By me doing my job and being able to do it efficiently, I'm able to move those inmates from the county jail into the state jail but I need people and courtroom space to do that.”

Stang pointed out that when the Grove Street was built, the public defenders office did not exist.

“Our office has been around since 2008,” she said. “And that means when the courthouse was built in 1995 we weren't contemplated in the design. There was no public defenders office space allotted … so for 15 years we've been working in a space that wasn't designed to accommodate an office of attorneys. It’s work that requires confidentiality, security, storage, meeting needs — all of which have been inadequate at various times over the 15 years.”

 Public defenders “represent the large majority of people charged in criminal court and also a majority of the people housed in the detention center,” she said before urging the board to OK both the courthouse and jail expansions. “If the detention center is expanded only, without the courthouse, it is going to strain a courthouse that is already understaffed and under-resourced.”

Ray acknowledged that a $200 million capital project —the costliest in the county’s history by far — could be “difficult to talk about.”

“It's not as glamorous as a park or the Ecusta Trail, which is gonna be a lot of fun,” he said. “It's kind of like going to the dentist office when you have to go to the courthouse. You don't really need it until you need it, but I'll tell you that when you need it — folks that come to see us at the courthouse oftentimes are in crisis. We serve thousands of members of this community every year who have lost a loved one or who are having a crisis in their family or who are having a crisis in their business. When things aren't going right, folks depend on the justice system, depend on the courthouse and the staff at the courthouse, to help them and it's a very, very important place for the citizens in this community to be able to come and do business.”

Like the top prosecutor and the chief public defender, Ray described the overcrowded conditions that exist today, even before factoring in growth in court services over time.

“My office is sharing space with the Register of Deeds office,” he said. “We've got judges who have been displaced from the judges suite and are now occupying space that the bailiffs need. We're making do the best that we can and we have done that for many years over there but I will tell you that I believe that we've made do all that we can.”

Judge Gasperson-Justice was sworn in as an attorney in 1989 in what is now the board’s assembly room in the Historic Courthouse, then spent 18 years practicing law before she became Clerk of Superior Court in 2006, serving 12½ years in that role before her appointment to the bench.

“Since my taking office as the clerk it became more and more apparent as the days went by how much our courthouse serves the people of Henderson County,” she said. “It's not just the people that come there for criminal court or civil court. They come there to add people to their families in adoptions. They come there when someone in their family passes away. There is so much that people don't realize they have to do in the courthouse till they get there.”

The courthouse serves the hub of justice for all that, and the county's projected growth signals that there will be more, the speakers told commissioners.

“There is so much we have to do and so much more we're going to have to do in the next few years, the next decade, far beyond the time that I'm going to be standing before you and serving this community," Gasperson-Justice said. I beg you, please be forward-thinking, please think about how we need to serve our community in all the things the judicial system does for the next 20 to 30 years — not just today.”