CLEARFIELD – A special session of Centralized Court was held at Clearfield County Jail Tuesday to process the first set of people charged in connection with last week’s drug arrests in the DuBois area.
Two magisterial district judges were at the jail to preside over preliminary hearings, and cases began going before the judges at 9:30 a.m. Late in the afternoon, cases were still being processed.
Many of those charged waived their right to a preliminary hearing, which only establishes that there is a reasonable certainty that a crime happened and the defendant is the person who committed it.
Some of the people had their bail changed to unsecured, meaning that they were released with their signature and special conditions, such as promising to refrain from further criminal activity.
Those releases helped to alleviate some of the overcrowding issues at CCJ that have been experienced with last week’s influx of prisoners.
“Crowding is always a problem at the jail – always,” said Clearfield County District Attorney William A. Shaw Jr., who was at CCJ Tuesday.
Of the day’s events, he said, “The operation is going smoothly.”
He said Tuesday’s special session was the first time a special session of Centralized Court was held to process all of the arrests made in the two-day drug sweep.
“This is the biggest operation we’ve ever done in Clearfield County.”