May 11: Jail Location
From what I have been able to find out there is no law or requirement courtrooms for criminal offenses be located in the county courthouse.
If this is true, why have county commissioners and others working on the new Smith County jail focused all their attention on building the jail adjacent to or as close to the courthouse as possible, which means on or near the square? Why not build a jail with courtrooms attached?
If this is done it really doesn't matter where the jail is located. It would be a lot cheaper for the judges to drive to the jail, with courtrooms attached, than to constantly transfer prisoners from the jail to the present courthouse. There are many locations which would provide adequate room for such a facility that are not in or near the present courthouse.
If the desire to be located near the center of town still is the predominate thinking of "the powers that be," one location that comes to mind is the old King Chevrolet property (plus the old Ford dealership property and other properties to the west going all the way to Palace Street if necessary).
This location seems to me to provide advantages over other "central locations." No need for a costly "high rise" jail or a "scaled down model," ease in transferring prisoners from the city jail to the county jail and from the present jail to the new jail, lots of parking and it would clean up that part of town. I'm sure there are other advantages if one puts his mind to it.
Just thinking "outside the box," or in this case, "outside the square." Maybe our illustrious county leaders could do the same.
Johnny Smith
Tyler
Tyler
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