JACKSON, Miss. - The state Supreme Court is sending a damage assessment team to south Mississippi to evaluate county courthouses after Hurricane Katrina.
The committee, headed by Justice James Graves Jr., plans to determine what needs the courts have for personnel, equipment and facilities and then will decide how much support the Supreme Court can provide to the lower courts.
"My goal is to have a report to the chief justice (Jim Smith) by the latter part of next week," Graves said.
Preliminary assessments of courthouses in southern Mississippi indicate that courts in Hancock, Harrison, Jackson, Jones and Lamar counties appeared to receive the most damage or the most disrupted court schedules.
Coastal courts have issued emergency orders suspending court activity until at least the end of October, said Circuit Judge Stephen B. Simpson of Gulfport.
Trial court judges in 27 counties of the Second Supreme Court District now have the authority to extend deadlines and reschedule proceedings.
The Supreme Court also granted a 90-day extension for appeals in the southern part of the state. Proceedings that involve attorneys whose offices or homes were within the district were given a 30 day extension for filing in disciplinary proceedings.
The judges will meet with the damage assessment committee on Monday and tour the courthouses in Harrison and Hancock counties.
The Harrison County Courthouse is still working, despite some damage and the camp of emergency management officials who set up a command center on the bottom floor, Simpson said.
"The Hancock County Courthouse received significant roof damage," Simpson said. "I don't know if any records were destroyed."
If records have been destroyed it is unpredictable how the courts will handle cases that remain open.
"I assume we would go to the court reporter or to attorneys to see (if they) had any records to try reconstruct the file," Simpson said.
