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IN RE: INQUIRY CONCERNING COUNTY COURT JUDGE KELLY COLLINS11/25/1987
he Mississippi Constitution of 1890, as Amended. One member filed a dissent, calling for Judge Collins' removal from office.
Aside from using county prisoners for personal and county work, Collins heard and decided more than 100 misdemeanor cases "off the record" for which there are no case files, docket entries, or other records of filing or disposition in the office of the circuit clerk, who also serves as Clerk of the County Court. The only records of these cases are receipts issued by the circuit clerk in the names of the various defendants without any reference or citation to a case number or docket entry.
Mississippi Code Annotated, Section 63-9-17 (Supp. 1986), provides in pertinent part:
(1) Every court shall keep a full record of the proceedings of every case in which a person
is charged with any violation of law regulating the operation of vehicles on the highways, streets or roads of this state.
(2) Unless otherwise sooner required by law, within forty-five (45) days after the conviction of a person upon a charge of violating any law regulating the operation of vehicles on the highways, streets or roads of this state, every judge or clerk of the court in which such conviction was had shall prepare and immediately forward to the Department of Public Safety an abstract of the record of said court covering the case in which said person was so convicted, which abstract must be certified by the person so authorized to prepare the same to be true and correct.
* * *
(5) The failure by refusal or neglect of any such judicial officer to comply with any of the requirements of this section shall constitute misconduct in office and shall be grounds for removal therefrom. (Emphasis Added).
Although the clerk performs the physical act of record keeping, the judge is ultimately responsible for the administration of his court. In fact, the Commission found that Judge Collins no longer handles or hears any matter unless proper preliminary records have been made in the clerk's office and are presented to him at the time the case is called.
In the case of State of Mississippi v. Izear Roberts, General Docket No. 3, County Court of Yazoo County, Mississippi, page 3225, case No. 3225, on October 18, 1985, Roberts was found guilty under Mississippi Code Annotated, Section 63-11-30 (Supp. 1986), of the offense of D.U.I. (third offense), along with being found guilty of driving with a suspended license. According to the records of the Mississippi Department of Public Safety, no record of Roberts' conviction was forwarded to the Commissioner of Public Safety. Mississippi Code Annotated, Section 63-11-37 (Supp. 1986), provides in pertinent part:
(1) It shall be the duty of the trial judge, upon conviction of any person under Section 63-11-30, to mail a copy of the abstract of the court record within five (5) days to the Commissioner
of Public Safety at Jackson, Mississippi. . . .
Judge Collins has no recollection of this case and no knowledge that a record of Roberts' conviction was forwarded to the Commissioner of Public Safety.
Finally, in at least three of the undocketed cases, the respondents were all fined for the offense of reckless driving, such fines all being in excess of the maximum statutory penalty of $100.00 for a first conviction of reckless driving. Mississippi Code Annotated, Section 63-3-1201 (Supp. 1986). None of the above mentioned defendants had a previous reckless driving conviction on their records. According to D.U.I. intoxilizer machine reports on file at the Yazoo City Police Department, the Yazoo County Sheriff's Of
Page 1 2 3 4 5 Mississippi DUI Attorneys
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