Price, 062097 MSAGO, AGO 97-353

• Case Date: June 20, 1997
• Court: Mississippi

Joe Price AGO 97-353 No. 97-0353 Mississippi Attorney General Opinions June 20, 1997          Sheriff Joe Price          Harrison County Sheriff          Post Office Box 1480          Gulfport, Mississippi 39502          Re: Jail Docket           Dear Sheriff Price:          Attorney General Mike Moore has received your letter of request and has assigned it to me for research and reply. Your letter states in part:

By means of this letter I ask that you provide my office with some clarification regarding the two (2) statutes which relate to my duty to maintain jail dockets. Section 47-1-21 provides that as sheriff I “shall keep a well bound alphabetical jail docket” and Section 19-25-63 provides that it is my duty as sheriff to keep a record, to be called the “Jail docket”. Let me point out to you that Section 19-25-63 was amended by the legislature in 1994 and prior to the amendment read as follows: It shall be the duty of every sheriff to keep a well-bound book, to be called the “Jail docket, ” .... Currently we are maintaining both a handwritten “bound” jail docket and a computerized jail docket, but we are in the process of improving the computer program we utilize at the jail, and the new program will make the handwritten “bound” jail docket obsolete. I do not want to run afoul of section 47-1-21, so I am asking if, in addition to the computerized jail docket, should I continue to maintain the handwritten “bound” jail docket? Also, relative to section 19-25-63 which requires that the jail docket be maintained as a public record, is there any section of the code which relates to the hours that the public records shall be available to the public? Are we required to have the jail docket available for public inspection twenty-four (24) hours a day, seven (7) days a week?

         In response, both Sections 47-1-21 and 19-25-63 require the sheriff to maintain a jail docket, however different information is required to be entered in each docket. Section 47-1-21 requiresthe name, age, color, and sex of each convict, the date of his or her commitment, each day worked on the county farm, time required to be served and amount of fine and costs and jail fees...