OCR Text |
Show - - : - f ""-"SK j BERNICE BURKE and Ted Freestone prepare for the day's work, which consists of preparing and serving papers issured from the courts. Their work begins the legal part of the court system. In the beginning Serving ?he summons This is the sixth in a series dealing with the judicial system. by Steve Christensen Assistant Editor All civil court suits begin with a summons. sum-mons. The vast majority of those summons sum-mons are served by the Sheriff's Department. Depart-ment. In Uintah County that responsibility respon-sibility falls on Bernice Burke and Ted Freestone. Mrs. Burke prepares the summons and court orders, plus subpoenas, orders to show cause, garnishments, and executions execu-tions to be served. Freestone serves the papers. I road along to see what Ted's day was like. He picked me up at 9:30 a.m. In the next two and a half hours we went from the remotest corner of the Davis area to the top of Dryfork Canyon. During that time Ted served several summons and orders to show cause, small claims summons, sum-mons, a protective order to some woman's boyfriend, attempted a praecipe execution (to pick up a truck, but there wasn't enough specific information infor-mation to know which truck was the right one), attempted to serve a summons to a grade school student for an overdue library book, and rattled some students at the alternative high school because there had been reports about marijuana use at the school. Ted can do those sort of things, he's a Class 1 peace officer. Like any other deputy, Ted responds to emergencies and enforces the law, but mostly he serves papers. Sometimes it's frustrating, "I bounce off a lot of doors in a day," Ted said. Many times people are just not home, so Ted just files the paper away and heads to the next door. But he'll be back. Bernice Ber-nice says they have a 85 to 90 percent success suc-cess ratio for serving papers on time, before they expire. When that happens it must be returned to the attorney and the process must be repeated. Ted didn't stop for coffee. Too much to do. Since Jan. 1, 1983, 1017 papers have been sent to the Sheriff's Office to be served. To accomplish their 85 to 90 percent per-cent success, Ted just keeps moving. Sometimes he even must work evenings to serve people who are just not around during the day. Not all papers must be served directly direct-ly to the person named. On most types of papers, a member of the household 14 years of age or older can accept it. Ted said most people accept in stride that they are being served. He said the worst thing an officer can do is act ornery about it. "After all, I'm not suing anybody," he said. The best thing to do, according to Ted, is just smile and try not to make it appear to be a big thing. Usually it isn't. One time, Ted said, he did serve divorce papers to a young woman who had no idea they were coming. He said she came to the door and smiled at him. He figured by her actions she knew what it was all about. "What's this all about?" she asked. Ted smiled back and said, "I don't know, I don't read them." (His usual response.) He stood there for a minute and, "She turned white in front of my eyes. I had nothing to do with the whole thing, but it didn't make me feel any better about it. That bothered me all day and most of the night." But most days go better than that. "It's a pretty good job." Ted said. Once the papers are served, Bernice sends a "return of service" to the attorney at-torney who prepared the papers in the first place, telling him the mission has been accomplished. She also bills the complaintant or attorney $3.75 filing charges, plus 75 cents per mile (one way) to serve the papers. This money goes directly into the Uintah County general fund. About 20 percent of the papers come through the court system with incorrect or insufficient information. They are constantly con-stantly receiving papers with only a Post Office box number for an address. Since the papers must be served in person, Bernice just sends them back to the complainant com-plainant telling them she needs more information. Bernice holds public auctions occassional occas-sional to dispose of property in an at tempt to pay back someone with a judge ment. If a person just can't pay, "you have to take other action to raise the money," Bernice said. Often this comes in the form of the court placing Continued on page 3 Summons... Continued from Page 1 something up for public auction. A great many of these take place on the court house steps. Bernice is required to post notice that the items are to be disposed of to raise funds, then they do it. When the matter is real estate property, the public notice is made, telling where the property is, and the auction is held in the same manner on the court house steps. Ted and Bernice are also responsible to handle garnishments and executions against a business' cash register. The court can hand down a judgment which requires a person to turn over one-fourth of his paycheck to pay off a debt. When this happens, the check comes directly to Bernice, where she makes arrangements ar-rangements for the proper parties to receive the money. The court can also rule the Sheriff can take money from a business. |