Comments on: Rarely Do I Agree with the Governor, but…

By: Ariel Werner

Ariel Werner — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 18:54:32 +0000

Time for me to eat (some of) my words. A long talk about this issue with my colleagues in the PD’s office today revealed that Garrahy is, by definition, a “sick building.” One of our most skilled attorneys, apparently, took a very long medical leave earlier in the year, having had his lungs and respiratory tract severely damaged by the mold content of the air in the building.

Congestion? No. Especially given that we could redistrict some people from the Garrahy (6th District) to the Kent County building, which is incredibly under-utilized. But sick and unsafe, yes. Very much so.

So, my apologies for my overly-vehement convictions about the condition of the building. Here’s to my not getting sick by the time school starts again in the Fall…

By: Double Jeopardy | Providence Daily Dose

Double Jeopardy | Providence Daily Dose — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 17:35:52 +0000

[...] I mentioned in a prior post about the Garrahy Judicial Complex, I’ve been spending a lot of time lately in that [...]

By: Ariel Werner

Ariel Werner — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 18:24:35 +0000

Ah, the humanity.

By: JOE BERNSTEIN

JOE BERNSTEIN — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 00:49:25 +0000

Ariel-your entry reminds me of a funny story-the courthouse at 100 Centre Street was located near the Bowery,formerly a location for derelicts(this being around 1971)-I had weekend court duty and got in very early one Saturday -I had to negotiate three locked doors to get into the officer’s locker room,and what was there?A passed out alky who had managed to complete all his normal body functions while lying on the floor.
In Brooklyn we had a dead guy on the courthouse steps for a few days before someone noticed he wasn’t just passed out.
Talk about not getting medicated-in Brooklyn Supreme Court(equivalent to Superior here)we had one courtroom where we had criminal competency hearings every morning -an average court had three officers-we had seven when I was assigned there-it seemed that when the inmates were moved from the state institution to the city detention center in Brooklyn,there was no full time doctor available,so they couldn’t force the inmates to take meds.By the time they got to court it was a week or two off thorazine or mellaril,etc and they were often having full blown psychotic episodes-it was like bedlam every morning-you would have thought it was a WWE show.One inmate ripped the toilet out of the floor and threw it at us.The judge excused his physical appearance in court :).

By: ConcernedStateWorker

ConcernedStateWorker — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 20:51:31 +0000

damn …. no edit button … my apologies for poor grammer

By: ConcernedStateWorker

ConcernedStateWorker — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 20:50:20 +0000

I agree with you that the contact with the public is probably not helpful in preventing spread the of disease there….

However, I am talking about all employees of the building, not just that are in contact with the public.

I think that the courts should be responsible for the fixing of the building not the people (hence: find it in their budget, don’t ask for it from us).

My main point is that our RI courts are hiding an almost dire need to do something about the condition of the building without telling us its a big problem. If they did, they would be open to lawsuits from the employees within.

By: Ariel Werner

Ariel Werner — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 20:44:24 +0000

It’s possible that the people who work there get sick more often than normal because the people who come into the building–namely, defendants–cannot afford proper health care and are not separated from the building’s many occupants. The people I see in the PDs office suffer everything from the common cold to the fatal infection MRSA. The many people I see with fairly severe psychiatric problems–bipolar, schizophrenia, manic depression–are usually held overnight or over the weekend without being given the medications that keep them stabilized. They, therefore, require more intense handling by the court employees (mainly sheriffs) because they are more likely to become upset or rowdy. They also are clearly prevented from remaining clean during their time in the court’s holding cells…when I interview people, they still smell like whatever they were drinking when they (allegedly) committed the crime in question.

The miscarriages I cannot speak to and was unaware of.

I think there are other steps that could be taken to fix up Garrahy without spending millions on a new courthouse. If you think Garrahy is unsanitary, building a new building won’t change that.

By: ConcernedStateWorker

ConcernedStateWorker — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 17:04:33 +0000

This is a simple issue.

The Garrahy building is a bad building. People who work there get sick more often than normal. The court wants our money to move to another building without admitting they have been forcing people to work in a building that, for years, has contributed to a higher than average illness and -miscarriage- rate!!!!

I hope they are forced to do something about it themselves, they have a large budget and don’t need more money from us, especially when the Governor is already trying to force Furlough days upon state workers. (Right after he gives his cronies over $100k in raises). There are other large, problematic issues with our Governor, such as his intense gutting of our state treasury, much like he did to Cookson and Old Stone.

By: JOE BERNSTEIN

JOE BERNSTEIN — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 19:34:10 +0000

Ariel-I addressed this on Anchor Rising,but there probably isn’t a huge crossover readership,so what I said there is that a new courthouse in Lincoln would be inaccessible to the people who most often have to go to court-lower income folks who may lack cars,or hte money for gas.Public transportation between Lincoln and Providence is inadequate and sporadic.
Lou Pulner suggested that expanding the Garrahy Complex into the adjoining parking lot and building a garage might work better.and don’t forget Kennedy Plaza is the state’s transport hub and it’s only blocks away.
From 1971-1976 I was a NY State Court Officer(similar to a Sheriff) and the courthouses there dispensed with any luxuries for judges or anyone else.
Judges often shared offices in the lower courts.Old robing rooms were used for hearings.The system worked ok.Judges don’t need to be pampered and catered to.They make good money and shouldn’t complain.
I thought the Governor should’ve signed the probation bill.The probation system in RI is really bad,aside from the fact that innocence should be a defense.The probation terms are too long and too loosely supervised due to monster caseloads(the officers aren’t the problem here)-shorter terms with more intensive hands on probation would yield greater returns.
Mandatory minimums is something I can’t speak to because I haven’t read the bill.Traffickers should do serious time.RI has a problem with its drug laws insofar as every drug possession charge of any substance other than marijuana is a felony.There should be a misdemeanor level drug possession charge available for any drug,so a person doesn’t get their life ruined with a felony first time out of the box.I’m not a liberal at all,but with 26 years in law enforcement,9 of those in narcotics enforcement,I have come to some informed conclusions.Society benefits from someone who can make use of a chance to change their behavior,rather than hit people with a “one size fits all”approach to the drug problem.