Photo by Sarah Finnegan.
From left, Dana Horsely, Heather Richards and Elizabeth Greer pose outside Mountain Brook City Hall, where they work for the municipal court in the magistrate office.
The municipal court system in Mountain Brook is a government system that is often overlooked and few know much about. However, their court judges, prosecutor and staff’s contribution to the city is immeasurable.
According to the website, “The Municipal Court Division provides administrative support to the judicial branch of city government, case docketing, case management, alternative sentence monitoring, court fines collection, and court fine and caseload reporting.”
Magistrate Supervisor Heather Richards said the court only handles misdemeanor cases — speeding tickets, running a stop sign, expired tags — because anything beyond that would be a felony and handled at the county level.
“Also, sometimes people get arrested, which would still be a misdemeanor, but they have to bond out and they have to give a court appearance. So they will come to court and see the judge and the judge will assess a fine,” she said.
While the court deals with a lot of speeding tickets and “surprisingly” a lot of drivers operating a vehicle with a suspended or revoked license, “the most arrestable offense, I think, would be failure to appear, which would be people who miss court on an underlying charge and they just do not come, so we issue a failure to appear warrant,” Richards said.
As stated on its website, the staff at the Mountain Brook Municipal Court, “strive to ensure citizens and users of the court efficient service in as comfortable an environment as possible.”
The court system has common misconceptions in the Mountain Brook community.
“A lot of people do not realize that court costs is not the cost of coming to court. A lot of people think that they can save court costs by not coming to court and that is a complete misconception,” Richards said. “You get charged if you come to court or not and the court cost is set by the state Legislature.”
In addition to providing an important service to the city, the work can also be rewarding. Richards said she loves the variety in each day’s schedule, as well as working with the public.
“I get to deal with the public, which I think was my calling because I always loved dealing with the public,” she said. “You never know what to expect and every day is different. The tickets are different, the people you interact with are different. Every day is something different and new.”
The working atmosphere in the municipal courts is a positive, too.
Court Magistrate Dana Horsley said she most enjoys the people she works with.
“Being in a team environment makes it so much more enjoyable than working in an environment where we are at each other’s throats all the time or walking on eggshells because you do not want to step [on] somebody’s feelings,” Horsley said. “We are very open here and the whole city is that way.”
“We all came from Hoover and had specified jobs, but here we are a team,” Richards said. “We all work together to accomplish the end goal, which is whatever we set out. … We try to be one cohesive unit.”
