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CHARLOTTE, NC – Each day hundreds of people are on the docket to go before a judge in Mecklenburg County. Now the District Attorney’s Office and Court System is working together to make the process a little more efficient.
Judge Theo Nixon presides over Citizens Court. “Family members, friends,acquaintances, neighbors, co-workers, that have gotten into some personal dispute,” Nixon says.
In North Carolina, a magistrate can sign off on a misdemeanor arrest warrant–even in cases without a police investigation. “Someone ran downtown to the Magistrate’s Office and took out a summons or a warrant against the other individual,” Nixon says.
In Citizens Court, victims and defendants are first assigned to a mediator. They go behind closed doors to try and resolve the issue. If mediation doesn’t work, they come back before the judge.
Citizens Court doesn’t hear cases involving police officers or issues like domestic violence. Over 900 cases have gone through Citizens Court since it started in Mecklenburg County in November 2012.
The District Attorney’s Office decides which cases should be seen here. “A larceny, a damage to property, some sort of neighbor dispute, we would look at to put in there,” says Sheena Gatehouse, with the DA’s Misdemeanor Prosecution Unit.
Gatehouse says many issues end up being easily resolved. “The mediators are often able to get to the heart of what created the problem to begin with, as opposed to reacting to the fact that a criminal charge has been taken out,” she says.
Something they say provides valuable time savings for prosecutors and the court system.
