Trumbull courthouse to get prisoner entrance

Deputies will no longer escort inmates across High Street on foot.

By ED RUNYAN

VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF

WARREN — Trumbull County commissioners have taken steps to create a paved area in front of the courthouse so that prisoners can be picked up and dropped off by vehicle to improve safety.

This week, they authorized the Warren architectural company Phillips/Sekanick to prepare plans for the project.

Tony Cornicelli, courthouse administrator and a member of the courthouse security committee, said the main goal of the new entrance is allow inmates to enter and leave the courthouse away from the common areas used by visitors and courthouse employees.

The new paved area will be built in front of an entrance that is sometimes used for inmates, about 30 feet to the left of the main courthouse doors. Most inmates are brought through a handicap-access door just to the right of the public entrance.

Having inmates enter the courthouse by vehicle will protect inmates from anyone who might try to harm them, Cornicelli said. Currently, inmates are escorted across High Street Northeast on foot from the Trumbull County Jail.

In addition to the drive-up, plans call for rearranging the security desk inside the front doors of the courthouse to create an additional entrance. Having one entrance for the public and another for employees is likely to reduce the time it takes to move people through the doorway at busy times, Cornicelli said.

Other improvements suggested by the Ohio Supreme Court’s Division of Court Security have to do with improved video surveillance cameras inside and outside of the courthouse and lockers inside the main doors where people can store items not allowed inside the building.

Cornicelli said he expects many of the upgrades to be made in the spring.

County officials asked the Supreme Court committee to recommend security upgrades in recent years — not so much because of security issues that have occurred in the courthouse but because it was time for upgrades, Cornicelli said.

On Nov. 14, 2006, a defendant was attacked by the mother of his dead girlfriend and two other family members while he waited for a court appearance in a third-floor courtroom. The attack was taped by a local television station and broadcast nationally.

Cornicelli said the cost of the upgrades is not known yet.

runyan@vindy.com