Jackson Free Press

Bill Gowan wants to make his temporary post on the Hinds County Circuit Court more permanent. Currently serving as a special circuit judge, Gowan hears serious drug and violent-crime cases investigated and prosecuted by the Jackson Enforcement Team, a federally funded program.

He is running for the Circuit Court seat for Sub-District 4, competing with Malcolm Harrison, Gov. Haley Barbour's temporary appointee to the seat.

Gowan attended the University of Mississippi, receiving a bachelor's degree in 1964 and his law degree in 1966. He served two stints as a specially appointed Hinds County Court judge, first in 2002 and again in 2006. He has also worked as a prosecutor for the city of Jackson and as in-house counsel for the Hinds County Sheriff's Department.

People complain about a backlog on the criminal docket in circuit court. Where is that coming from?

Right now there's approximately 2,000 outstanding cases on the trial docket, between 1,200 and 1,500 new indictments this year. You do the math on that. There are four judges, plus two JET judges. And the JET court has very limited dockets: only violent crimes and drugs. The JET cases have helped in reducing the backlog, because of the fact that many of these people that come up before the court through the JET program are recidivists. They might have a charge already pending with a trial on the docket now. What usually happens is that those cases are all consolidated, and if there's a plea bargain, they're all taken care of. In effect, it reduces the backlog.

Some people talk about expanding the use of county court judges to hear criminal cases. Is that a potential solution to the backlog?

The criminal justice system is made up of several components, as you know: enforcement, prosecution, the public defender's office or private lawyers, and the judiciary. So when you start talking about the county court taking over some of these responsibilities, who's going to prosecute? Where are the defenders going to come from? The problem is not just (solved by) an additional judge on the bench.

Often times, when I've got somebody before me, either at a bond hearing or an initial appearance, I look at his criminal history. A criminal history will tell you how many times someone's been arrested, but it doesn't necessarily deal with convictions. ... If someone has been arrested, you look to see whether he was bonded. If it's been in the past 18 months or so, he's not on anybody's docket, (and) he hasn't been indicted, yet, chances are the district attorney's office doesn't even know a crime's been committed. This person's been arrested; he's been booked; he's been released on bond. And law enforcement--because of time constraints, lack of manpower, or whatever the case may be--has not sent it to the district attorney's office for indictment. ... There's a big glitch in the system. There needs to be some accountability. If there's an arrest made, there needs to be some cross-reference to what happened to this arrest. Has it been prepared? Has it been sent to the district attorney's office?

When I was a county judge, we actually would have status (conferences) every 30 days, where the law enforcement agencies would come in, the district attorney's office would come in, the public defender's office would come in, and we'd talk about some of these cases that were on the docket or arrests that had been made. It's not rocket science to find out "Bill Gowan has been arrested on a charge," because I was booked in. Now, taking the booking information and taking it forward: Has he been indicted? Does the district attorney's office even know he was arrested? ... That's where the glitch is.

So these folks are falling through the system?

The DA's office can only proceed on prosecution for those cases that they know exist.

On your website, you describe yourself as conservative. What does that mean?

I try to live by those ideals and standards that were instilled in me by my parents. I don't think that you can overlook consequences for crime. There are a lot of socioeconomic reasons as to why crimes are committed, but that has nothing to do with guilt or innocence. Now, if there are some socioeconomic reasons that one should take into consideration in sentencing time, then that's the appropriate time to take that into consideration. But if someone has never held down a job, and they're 40 years old, and they've been managing to survive somehow, I'm not going to make that leap of faith and say, "Well, he's doing something illegal for his livelihood." I think that everyone needs to be employed. I think that everyone needs to contribute to our society in some way.

What would be your first actions if elected?

The first thing I would do is do a general docket call and find out the status of all the cases that are on my docket. I would require pre-trial orders to be entered on all of them, and I'd set some trigger dates and some timeframes in which to get these cases disposed. I'd try to reinstitute this monthly status conference among all the components of the justice system to find out what happened to all these people that have been arrested.