Request By:
Mr. Homer Weaver
President
Kentucky Jailers Association
115 Court Street
Manchester, Kentucky 40962
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
You would like an opinion from this office concerning the following two questions:
1. Can the fiscal court place a capacity on the number of inmates a county jail can hold at one time, also who can commit an inmate when we are at our capacity.
2. Since the jailer is no longer a fee officer is he required to wait on court or transport inmates to and from court.
Although the jailer has the immediate custody, rule and charge of the jail in his county and of all persons in the jail, pursuant to KRS 71.020. KRS 441.006 (Ch. 385, 1982) places the responsibility for providing a jail in the county or contracting with another county or a city for the incarceration of prisoners upon the fiscal court. The statute implicitly gives the fiscal court the authority to determine the prisoner capacity of the local jail in order to intelligently plan for the incarceration of all prisoners subject to the local courts. Of course the number of prisoners would be subject to jail standards, emerging from the Jail Standards Commission pursuant to KRS 441.011 (Ch. 385), as adopted by the Bureau of Corrections, and other statutory requirements relating to detention facilities.
When the local jail is at its capacity, the fiscal court must contract with another county or a city to provide detention facilities for such excess.
It is up to the jailer generally to procure the necessary drivers and guards required to transport prisoners to the jail to be used under the contract. KRS 441.500(3), as amended in 1982. This should be done by closely cooperating with the fiscal court, such that it knows precisely and in detail what is required under that jail plan. The funding of such necessary personnel clearly rests with the fiscal court under KRS 441.006 and 441.008. The latter statute requires the fiscal court by July 1, 1982, and by May 1 of each year thereafter, to adopt an operating budget for the jail, which shall provide for the expenditure of all state, county and other funds for jail operations. Under KRS 441.008(2), the county treasurer shall disburse jail operating funds at the direction of the jailer, provided the expenditures are within authorized budget categories, and shall keep books of accounts of all receipts and disbursements and make such reports as are required by the State Local Finance Officer.
As relates to question no. 2, a county jailer has custody of the prisoners in his jail. KRS 71.020 and 71.040. Further, he is, under KRS 71.050, an officer of the court for the district and circuit courts in his county. Therefore, the jailer, or his deputies, is responsible for transporting such prisoners to and from the courts and remaining with such prisoners while they are before the courts. Here in interpreting the various jailer's statutes, above, we are attempting to place a practical as well as literal construction on them.