Warren County Courthouse

The Warren County Courthouse is in Belvidere.

(File Photo)

Visitors look over the criminal courtroom in the renovated wing at the Warren County Court House.

A judge's decision to declare a Warren County courtroom unconstitutional has left the Belvidere courthouse less secure than it was before nearly $6 million in renovations, county officials say.

And now, they are demanding that the state Judiciary foot the bill to remedy the situation.

Warren County freeholders filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the New Jersey Administrative Office of the Courts and numerous judicial officials in an effort to compel the Judiciary to finance a fix that could cost as much as $1 million.

"Who's responsible if these requests they make don't fit the bill for them after the fact?" asked Freeholder Director Edward Smith. "They deemed it unusable practically before the paint was dry. That's outrageous. That's a lot of money we spent."

A spokeswoman for the Administrative Office of the Courts declined comment Thursday, citing the pending litigation.

The longstanding debate began shortly after a $5.8 million renovation of the courthouse was completed in February 2012 at the request of court officials. Included in the project was a new Courtroom 2, meant to hold criminal hearings and trials, as well as an elevator that runs between the basement holding cells and the courtroom.

However, Superior Court Judge Ann Bartlett ruled soon after that a 6-inch-wide support pillar in the courtroom, which blocks the defense table's line of sight to the jury box and witness stand, made trials held there unconstitutional. The courtroom, in the interim, has been used for proceedings that don't involve a jury.

Security concerns

According to the 15-page complaint, filed in state Superior Court in Belvidere, the ruling has forced sheriff's officers to escort prisoners on trial from the elevator and down a second-floor hallway to Courtroom 1.

While doing so, visitors are cordoned into a nearby stairwell until the prisoner passes by. Smith called the method a "degradation of security" and said it is not a viable solution.

"I know as a freeholder we have a concern with transporting prisoners in the manner we are now -- disrupting the entire courthouse and taking them through unsecured spaces," Smith said. "There's a potential liability there."

While a Middlesex County judge is currently considering an appeal of Bartlett's decision, county officials began considering several ways to remedy the situation. However, the only practical means to render Courtroom 2 constitutionally compliant, the suit says, is to remove the pillar.

Smith said there are no plans in place to remove the column, as doing so would carry a severe architectural impact and require a redesign of major elements of the first and second floors.

A more likely solution would be to renovate Courtroom 1 and include a new elevator near there for prisoner transport. Smith said he has heard "ballpark estimates" for the project in the range of $500,000 to $1 million.

Freeholders said the state has looked entirely to the county taxpayers to fund new renovations, despite court officials having approved the original courthouse plans before construction took place.

County: State signed off

According to the suit, representatives of the Judiciary were heavily involved in the planning of Courtroom 2, weighing in on details as minute as whether to have upholstered cushions on the courtroom pews and the width of jury seats.

"At no time did representatives of the Judiciary advise the County of Warren that the final and approved design of Courtroom No. 2 was a problem or would render the courtroom inadequate for its intended use of criminal trials," the suit says.

It wasn't until after construction was completed, Smith said, that issues began to arise.

"The county feels we acted in good faith, we relied on their input, and as soon as the job was done, they said they don't like it and they're not responsible for paying to fix it," Smith said.

Sparked by the stalemate of how to address the courtroom, freeholders approved a measure last year seeking a constitutional amendment that would make it mandatory for an arbitrator to handle disputes between county officials and the judicial branch of state government.

As for now, Smith said freeholders hope they can force a decision on the courtroom by filing the lawsuit.

"The real question here is can we get a fair decision here when the Judiciary is the defendant?" he said.