Jonesboro, AR – (JonesboroRightNow.com) – March 7, 2025 – Local and state officials, department heads and community leaders gathered on Friday morning inside one of the new courtrooms for the Grand Opening and Ribbon Cutting Ceremony of the Craighead County Courthouse Annex Addition.
Craighead County Judge Marvin Day began the ceremony with a brief history of how the project came to be and the importance of the additional courtrooms. He noted that, after five and a half years in the making, he felt the project was very successful.
“We’re excited. We think it’s going to make a difference for the safety of our community and in our trajectory going forward,” Day said.
Guest speakers included Historian Danny Honnoll, who gave some of the history of the courthouse; Second Judicial Circuit Judge Melissa Richardson and Second Judicial District Prosecuting Attorney Sonia Hagood.
Richardson noted that she was one of 12 circuit judges who traveled to the six counties in the second judicial district, presiding in nine different courthouses and handling five different divisions.
“Craighead is, of course, our largest county and our most populated county. As Jonesboro has grown, our dockets here in Jonesboro have grown as well,” she said. “Here in Jonesboro, the way we administer to our district is we have three circuit judges who preside over civil trials and we have three circuit judges who preside over criminal trials. Civil and criminal dockets have cases that require jury trials to resolve many types of those cases. And, here in Jonesboro, before this week, before the opening of this facility, we had one large jury-sized courtroom between all six of those civil and criminal juries dockets to be managed by those judges.”
Richardson added, “Additionally, that one large courtroom we have across the street was the only one, until this week, that was large enough to accommodate the large criminal dockets that we have multiple times each month here in Jonesboro. You can all imagine the challenges that we have experienced with jury trial scheduling given that limitation. But now, thanks to the leadership here in Craighead County, we have three additional jury trial courtrooms. This beautiful courtroom that we are in right now, and there is another one just like it on the second floor and another one right above that on the third floor. Two of these courtrooms have holding cells that are designed to accommodate the large criminal dockets that will provide for the security of both the defendants and the public. The availability of these new courtrooms will absolutely impact the criminal and civil dockets here in Jonesboro.”
The expansion also boasts a community safe room, which doubles as the new Quorum Court meeting room.