VILLE PLATTE ROTARY CLUB

MAY 12, 2015

        The Ville Platte Rotary Club today (Tuesday) heard from special guest speaker District Judge Chuck West.

         Judge West told club members that he and Judge Gary Ortego  in cooperation with the Clerk of Court have made changes and improvements to the jury selection process. He said the public needs to be aware of the need to appear for possible jury duty. Some 300 people are subpoenaed in a given month for civil and criminal trials. As a means to inform more of the general public, the public can now go on line and see when the jury trials are set and if they need to report.

     Also both judges have signed up to speed up the process for arrest and search warrants. In the past, sometimes it could take hours to notify a judge after hours or on weekends to review and sign a warrant. Now, Judges West and Ortego have signed up for an online warranty generator. Through this process, it reduces the turnaround  time from up to two hours down to 15 minutes.

     Judge West is also concerned with security in the court rooms and throughout the courthouse. “Sometimes we deal with tense and explosive situations between the accused and victims and we need better security, “the judge said. Currently courthouse departments are pooling their resources to ramp up security personnel and measures. Judge West was the special guest of Rotarian Jimmy LeBlanc.