Retired attorneys appointed as weekend jail magistrates in McLennan County at potential cost of $90K to taxpayers

WACO, Texas (KWTX) - McLennan County officials on Tuesday appointed three retired attorneys to serve as weekend jail magistrates, a duty historically performed on a rotating basis by the county’s justices of the peace.

The decision to appoint the lawyers instead of relying on the justices of the peace added $90,000 to the new fiscal year budget, which proposes to pay the three attorneys – Guy Cox, Dick Kettler and Joe Layman - $125 an hour for weekend magistrate duties.

The action was prompted by several factors, official say, including a growing county, a burgeoning jail population, new requirements under Senate Bill 6, the retirement of longtime Precinct 5 Justice of the Peace Fernando Villarreal and a gradual drop-off of current justices of the peace unwilling to stay aboard the weekend jail rotation.

County leaders say the appointment of weekend jail magistrates has been discussed for several years. However, Villarreal and Precinct 4 Justice of the Peace Brian Richardson have been willing to alternate jail magistrate duties every other weekend for the past several years, so the job was getting done.

One by one, beginning about eight years ago with Precinct 3 Justice of the Peace David Pareya, justices of the peace, including Precinct 1 judges Pete Peterson and Dianne Hensley and Precinct 2 Judge James E. Lee Jr., excused themselves from the weekend rotation.

Precinct 1 is the largest of the justice of the peace precincts and includes both of Waco’s hospitals. That keeps Peterson and Hensley hopping with more death calls than the other judges, plus their other duties.

In 2012, commissioners appointed Waco attorney Virgil Bain as a new criminal associate judge to primarily handle jail arraignments Monday through Friday.

Richardson told commissioners he would be willing to continue his weekend tours of duty at the jail but made it clear he didn’t want to do it alone every weekend. Lucy Sanchez-Miramontez, who will succeed Villarreal in January, said she told officials she would be willing to perform weekend magistrate duties once she is in office and receives the required training.

“I told them I would work the expectations as needed for the county,” said Sanchez-Miramontez, who resigned her position as mayor of Beverly Hills this week in anticipation of beginning her new job as justice of the peace. “I am aware that they hired three magistrates to assist with those jail duties, which I think is wonderful. I am excited to learn and excited to serve McLennan County.”

Major factors in the county deciding to appoint the new associate criminal jail magistrates are provisions passed last year under Senate Bill 6, also known as the Damon Allen Act. Allen, a state trooper, was killed in the line of duty in 2017 in Limestone County by a repeat offender recently released from jail on bail.

The new law significantly changed the process for setting bail by giving magistrates better information about a defendant, including their criminal history and any required bond conditions, prohibiting release of a defendant on a personal bond under certain conditions and increasing educational requirements for magistrates.

Besides an additional eight-hour educational course, magistrates must be certified to review information from state law enforcement data bases, officials said.

What once took 10 minutes to arraign a defendant now can stretch up to 30 minutes or more, officials said. Villarreal says he and Richardson arraigned a daily total of from 40 to 45 jail inmates the past few Saturdays and Sundays, which can eat up a pretty good chunk of their weekends, they said.

“I’ll welcome anybody who wants to come and get involved in the weekend jail rotation,” Richardson said. “It will give me a little time off.”

Villarreal, who is retiring after 30 years as justice of the peace, said he thinks the three new magistrates eventually will save the county money because they can keep regular schedules and work with jail officials to free inmates on bail. And at a cost of $80 a day to house a county jail inmate, it possibly can save the county money by allowing those eligible to post bond on a more timely basis, Villarreal said.

“Under the new (Senate Bill 6) system, it takes almost three times as long to do the magistration,” Villarreal said. “So I think it is a good thing to appoint these three lawyers. And they won’t get paid unless they are working. So anything that can be done to get people out of jail, in the long run, it saves money, and once you have five judges in the rotation, they will better be able to adjust their weekends.”

Cox, 75 and Kettler, 77, both said they are looking forward to starting their new duties.

“For me, having been retired, it will take up some of the spare time where I am nonproductive,” Cox said. “I think it is going to be a good deal for Dick and Joe and me, as well as for the county.”

Both Peterson and Pareya stressed that while justices of the peace historically have performed jail magistrate duties, most any judge at the courthouse also can serve as magistrate.

“A magistrate is any judge, a district judge, a county judge, and all the way up,” Peterson said. “That just kind of fell on the JPs. But it is better this way, believe me. Magistration has gotten so complex now. It takes more duties. I have plenty to do with running my office, and we are talking about three or four hours in magistration a day. I can’t do that.”

When told Sanchez-Miramontez is willing to jump into the weekend jail rotation, Peterson said, “More power to her.”

Pareya said he dropped out of the weekend jail rotation after he was told there was no money in the budget to compensate them for it.

“They were working all of us pretty strong, and it got to the point where we couldn’t even have a weekend,” Pareya said. “There was no extra consideration for that, so I backed out at the time, saying all these other judges in our county could be doing the same service. We were basically the mules of the county doing the magistration process.”

Pareya, Hensley and Peterson are paid $83,578 a year, while Lee and Richardson are paid $68,268. Sanchez-Miramontez will inherit Villarreal’s annual salary of $75,098.

Bain is paid $134,371 as the weekday jail magistrate.

The new associate criminal judge jail magistrates have the authority to set, adjust or revoke bonds, hear negotiated plea deals, conduct pretrial hearings, issue evidentiary search warrants and other limited duties.

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