THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 21, 1995 TAG: 9509210413
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY ANNE SAITA, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CURRITUCK LENGTH: Medium: 62 lines
Currituck County has a new magistrate, one of only two in North Carolina to be both authorized and funded this year by the state legislature.
But as T. Baxter Williams Jr. gets ready to rotate judicial duties with two others, county and court officials disagree about where he should work.
The Currituck County Board of Commissioners wants Williams stationed at the Corolla satellite office on the Outer Banks during the busy summer.
For at least three years, the board has requested an additional magistrate to help sheriff's deputies and state troopers process suspected criminals and traffic violators in a timely manner.
Currently, police must take anyone needing to appear before a magistrate to the courthouse on the Currituck mainland. The trip can leave county beach residents and vacationers with little or no police protection for up to four hours during the peak of the tourist season.
Grafton Beaman, the chief judge for the 1st Judicial District, said this week that a magistrate's presence in Corolla will not improve conditions unless a jail is built as well.
``If you have an officer on the Outer Banks and no facilities to hold the person, the person would have to be transported to the jail at these facilities,'' Beaman said, referring to the courthouse complex. ``So it would serve no useful purpose.''
The Currituck County jail holds up to 18 male inmates and frequently remains full during peak tourist months, Sheriff Glenn Brinkley said.
Women prisoners must be taken as far as Halifax County because the county lacks separate facilities.
It was Beaman who assigned a new magistrate to Currituck County. Pasquotank County also was in the running.
``I chose Currituck because I thought two magistrates were insufficient to run the place 24 hours a day, 365 days a year,'' the judge said. ``I thought Pasquotank could survive a little longer, even though they have a higher caseload.''
Currituck County's mainland and beach populations have swelled in recent years, leading to more arrests, particularly in the summertime.
The only other locality to receive a new, funded magistrate was Beaufort County, where Chad O'Neal of Belhaven was added to the roster.
Williams, 63, a native of Currituck, is a former farmer and now part-time banker. He served on the Board of Education and the county commission in the '70s and '80s.
``I don't really think it's a matter of what the commissioners like or the magistrates like. It's what the court system dictates,'' he said.
Williams, who was sworn in this month, will work with magistrates Bill Privott and Garfield Cartwright until next week or early October.
At the conclusion of a work session this week, commissioners expressed the need to keep a magistrate on the Outer Banks.
``In the meantime, it appears to me we're gonna be doing business as usual,'' Commissioner Ernie Bowden said. ``In lieu of a magistrate, we're just gonna have to hire more deputies, I suppose.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
T. Baxter Williams Jr. by CNB