Brendon Miller

6 Month Report

COUNTY ATTORNEY CORNER WHAT’S HAPPENED IN THE FIRST SIX MONTHS 7-22-03
I hope you all are having a wonderful summer. I thank all of you for the wonderful comments and e-mails that I have received regarding the articles in the paper and the overall job that I have been doing. I apologize that it has been a couple of months since the last article, but my time has been short. On July 6, I have been in office for six months, and what a six months it has been. Through this article, I hope to give you the basics of what has been going on. I joke with many people that I did not have a single gray hair on January 6, and now have them all over the place!! Seriously, the last six months have been very busy, tiring and trying, but still rewarding as our office is striving to (as I challenged the Breathitt High School graduating seniors) make a difference in Breathitt County.

The first matter that had to be addressed was the County Attorney’s office in the Courthouse. I now operate out of that office daily for all functions except my private practice. The office was in poor shape, and I thought the taxpayers of this County deserved better. The office has been cleaned up, painted, and refurbished. We have managed to purchase three new computers, a new copier, and several pieces of furniture to make the office functional and give it a professional look. The majority of this has been accomplished with the office expense money from tax collection. Please stop in and see the office and visit for a while when you are in the courthouse.
As many of you know, the County Attorney’s job consists of basically four different positions, 1) District Court prosecutor, 2) contracting official for child support, 3) tax collector and 4) legal advisor to the County and elected officials. Then there is the unknown job of psychiatrist and problem solver. I will highlight each in turn.

PROSECUTOR
As many know, the first stop for all problems is the County Attorney’s office, and we have undertaken a major change in how arrest warrants are issued. Basically, all complaints are reviewed by either myself or Assistant County Attorney Stanley Turner, to see if there is a valid complaint that can be proven in court. The complaint is checked to see if there is sufficient evidence for a charge and if so if it is serious enough to have someone arrested. I take very seriously having a person arrested based upon the statements of a private citizen without police involvement. Other County Attorney’s basically do not issue an arrest warrant without a police report or police involvement, this would be great, but to this point has not been feasible. At any rate, we are attempting to only have valid cases that need to be in court, actually in court. This both serves as a matter of fairness to all people who are innocent until proven guilty and saves the County money for housing prisoners when the person does not ultimately wish to prosecute.
Before taking office, I promised to prosecute DUI’s, including persons driving on drugs, and have done so. So far we have had 67 DUI cases that have been fully disposed of in District Court. The breakdown of disposition is as follows:
Guilty pleas as charged – 48; Guilty pleas to amended higher or lower level of DUI as was charged with wrong level based upon driving history – 5; Cases dismissed by Court (over objection of Commonwealth) on trial date or date of scheduled hearing as Commonwealth could not proceed due to Kentucky State Trooper who had made arrests no longer with KSP and would not answer subpoena – 5; Not guilty verdict at trial – 1; Case amended to reckless driving due to breathalyzer being below legal level – 1; Case amended to AI due to inability to prove operation of vehicle based upon affidavits of witnesses and victim – 1; Case dismissed by Court (over objection of Commonwealth) due to KSP officer not responding to subpoena on probable cause hearing date – 1 (this case will be refiled if the blood test comes back positive); Case dismissed due to breathalyzer being below legal level and below presumption of intoxication, plead guilty on other charges – 1; Cases that were either bound over to the Breathitt County Grand Jury in conjunction with a felony offense or dismissed (over objection of Commonwealth) at preliminary hearing as arresting officer could not appear and then presented to Breathitt County Grand Jury – 4.

This is a total of 67 cases, with 53 guilty pleas for a conviction rate of 79%. When you subtract the 6 cases dismissed by the Court due to matters concerning the failure of the arresting officer to be present, and 4 that were sent on to the grand jury as they were associated with felonies, there have been 53 of 57 cases with a conviction, for a rate of 93%, with 2 cases pleading to lesser offenses due to factual matters, 1 case pleading to other charges, and 1 acquittal.
Hopefully, people will realize that they can party and have fun and drink if they wish, but they will not be allowed to place the lives of other persons in danger by driving impaired.
The cold check program has been a success to date. Many businesses have received their funds for the checks and reported a decreased number of cold checks coming in. Apparently, the signs really help. We have to make Breathitt County conducive to business, and no business can operate when they consistently get beat on bad checks. Hopefully, cold checks will become a lesser problem in the future.

CHILD SUPPORT
In January I was honored to be chosen by the Kentucky County Attorney’s Association to represent the Kentucky River region (the eight counties of the KRADD district) on child support issues, and have attended many meetings that will hopefully shape the future of child support enforcement in Kentucky. The collection and enforcement of child support continues to improve. Child Support is a highly emotional issue due to the fact that both children and money are involved. I have always said, you can put someone in jail and they don’t mind that much, but you dip into their pocket and they get mad. Enforcement in some cases is difficult, however, the bottom line is that those children did not ask to be born and they deserve to be taken care of, and our goal is to see that this happens. The child support office is now fully staffed with five employees. Supervisor Mary Lucas, Caseworkers Lisa Herald, Janice Cole, and new employee Penny Charles, and Secretary Joy Hollon. This will facilitate closer case supervision in the future and better service to the families.

TAX COLLECTION
I have made a concerted effort to collect delinquent property taxes. The results have been truly greater than I ever expected, my goal was $100,000.00 for the year, and that has already been achieved. The effort began in earnest in early March and has reaped the following amounts:

January $ 6,644.42
February $ 2,943.28
March $18,707.45
April $21,247.71
May $22,211.44
June $38,927.58
Total $110,687.88

This money will be valuable for the County, the Breathitt Board of Education, and the other taxing districts. The above amounts may not be able to be sustained, but efforts to see that everyone pays will continue.

COUNTY ADVISOR
This by far is the most difficult and time consuming part of the job. There have been so may issues that have come to the forefront during the last six months including many aspects of the Judicial Center and the pending condemnation suit concerning the land, the ambulance service and the ongoing lawsuit, the nursing home situation, and all other matters that touch the County, all of which have demanded countless hours. Probably the most important project to me is the Breathitt County Water District. To date I have logged many, many hours trying get the Water District organized and established according to law, and have personally prepared over sixty easements and deeds along with having to verify title ownership to each of those properties along Hwy. 30. Breathitt County is in the bottom two counties in which residents have water in this Commonwealth, which is shameful. This project is desperately needed and will benefit so many along Hwy. 30 and in other parts of the County as the District progresses to other projects in the future.

Needless to say, all this along with still keeping up a private law practice, doing public appearances and speaking engagements, and trying to have a life outside this job has been very, very difficult. However, I knew all of this prior to running for the job, and it has been truly rewarding. I truly enjoy this job and trying to make change happen for the future of this county, and I am looking forward to the coming years when some of the results will be apparent. I would like to thank extend a special thanks to County Attorney Secretary Imogene Minix for her tireless work, and my wonderful wife Elizabeth, who is probably busier that me, and still has to put up with me and all the ups and downs this job brings.
Please e-mail me at bdmiller@setel.com with any comments, and visit the County Attorney website at breathittcoattorney.com for more information on the office. Remember, together we can all MAKE A DIFFERENCE!!