CARTER JAIL - JUDGE SAYS CONTRABAND MAJOR ISSUE FOR FACILITY

ELIZABETHTON - Criminal Court Judge Bob Cupp was going through a list
of questions he is required to ask defendants before they enter a
voluntary guilty plea in his court when an inmate from the Carter
County Jail gave him an answer in November that the judge described as
"mind boggling." The inmate, who was pleading guilty to theft under
$500 and forgery, told the judge that he had "smoked a joint" in his
jail cell just a few days before his court appearance.

"I appreciate your honesty," Cupp told the inmate, who was dressed in
the orange-colored clothing issued to all prisoners of the Carter
County Jail. "Drugs seem easier to come by in jail than anywhere else."

Criminal Court Judge Lynn Brown says drugs and contraband have been a
problem that has plagued the Carter County Jail for years. Brown
recalled a time years ago when he spotted a man tossing airplane glue
up to his grandson through a window in the jail, which is located on
the second floor of the Carter County Courthouse Annex.

Brown, who was serving as an assistant district attorney general at
the time of the incident, said he doubted the grandson was intending
to use the glue to assemble a model plane.

The judge said he has seen cases of drug use by inmates at other
detention facilities in the area, including several drug overdoses at
Northeast Correctional Complex, Mountain City, but believes the
problem to be particularly pervasive in the Carter County Jail. It's
not uncommon, Brown said, to have an inmate at the facility admit to
"smoking a joint" the night before he or she appears in his court for
a probation hearing.

"It's astounding," Brown said last week. "We lock people up in the
jail and they just smoke more dope."

He said there are a number of "terrible design flaws" at the 20
year-old jail that he believes has made it easier to smuggle
everything from cigarettes to methadone into the facility.

"We used to see the same problems at the old Johnson County Jail, but
the new jail has solved that," Brown said.

Johnson County officials opened a new $4.5 million jail late last year
that includes video conferencing aimed at keeping inmates physically
separated from their visitors. That's not the case in Carter County,
where jailers face a constant struggle to prevent contraband from
being smuggled into the facility by both inmates and visitors.

"We take as many precautions as we can, but we still have people
smuggling things in," Sheriff John Henson said last week. "You can't
keep it out. I've been here 32 years, and it has always been a
problem." Like Brown, the sheriff believes the design of the building
has made it easier for drugs and other contraband to pass through his
security.

"This building is not set up properly for visitation," Henson said.
"I'd say 75 percent of the contraband is coming in through
visitations."

Henson also said he has no way to separate work-release inmates, who
leave his facility each day to report to jobs, from the general jail
population. He said his jailers are limited by law in how far they can
go to search both inmates and visitors to the facility.

"They bring in the drugs in their body cavities, and they know how to
get it in here," Henson said.

One former Carter County inmate said recently he will never forget a
horrifying night spent in the facility last year. Calvin Nikazy,
Jacksonville, Fla., was being held on charges of theft over $500 and
resisting arrest when he was placed in a cell block with 18 other
inmates, most of whom, he said, were using drugs.

"There was obvious drug use with needles being passed back and forth
by the other inmates," said Nikazy, who would later see the theft
charges dropped. "The needles were coming into the jail by a mop
bucket used by a trusty."

Nikazy is not the only former inmate who has complained of rampant
drug use in the jail. One defendant in a federal class-action lawsuit
filed against the jail last year claims he saw prisoners using
marijuana, cocaine and morphine "on an almost daily basis."

Drug use is believed to have claimed the life of at least one inmate
at the jail. Melinda R. Heaton, 37, was found dead in her cell
following an overdose of methadone in September 2002.

The problem of drug use in the jail has not gone unnoticed by Carter
County commissioners, who are debating a plan to renovate and expand
the detention facility. One commissioner reported smelling marijuana
smoke coming from one of the cells last year while participating in a
routine tour of the facility as member of the county's Jail Inspection
Committee.