Judge Patrick Pinkston has seen every courtroom in Elmore County as an attorney and judge. He also sees the need to add courtrooms and administrative space in Elmore County.

Pinkston is now the presiding circuit court judge of the 19th Judicial Circuit that includes Elmore, Autauga and Chilton counties. He was on the bench for more than a decade as an Elmore County district judge. He got his start as an attorney in 1989 in the courtroom of the Elmore County Historic Courthouse. 

“I tried my first jury trial in this courtroom,” Pinkston said. “I was present 30 years ago when we moved over to our now existing judicial complex. I am keenly familiar with the dynamics of our circuit consisting of those three counties.”

Like others at the time, no one predicted the exponential growth Elmore County has experienced since 1995 to now, during which time the population has almost doubled.

“We just didn’t see it coming so fast,” Pinkston said. 

Pinkston is the seventh generation of his family to live in Elmore County, and he too would pay any new fees or assessments to create a new jail and renovate the judicial complex.

“We aren't going anywhere,” Pinkston said. “This is our home. This is where we plan to be.”

Just like the population, the case load of the various courts has grown dramatically. The Alabama legislature has approved two new circuit court judges for the 19th Judicial Circuit and space is needed not only for two new judges but for the current cases.

“Calendaring in order to accommodate the judges who simply must have courtroom space is currently beyond challenging,” Pinkston said. “That challenge is only going to become further complicated when Judge Dee Dee Calhoun takes office next week. Courtroom availability will be almost chaotic when the fifth full-time circuit judge takes place in January 2027.”

Although the vast majority of cases in the three-county circuit are tried in Elmore County, it was Chilton County that recently broke ground on a new judicial complex to accommodate its growing court system. 

“Elmore County bar none is the busiest circuit court in the circuit,” Pinkston said. “It's the busiest courthouse. It has more judges. It has more cases, more traffic, more is going on here.”

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In fact, the circuit is one of the top three busiest in the state.

To aid in the backlog of cases, it is not uncommon currently for the judicial center’s law library and the grand jury room in the district attorney’s office to be used.

New Elmore County District Court Judge Ben Baxley even scheduled the courtroom in the historic courthouse because space was needed due to the number of parties involved in a child custody case.

“It poses a lot of logistical problems because we have to have the sheriff's office who provides security,” Baxley said. “My staff has to come over and set up court here. The parties have to come here as well.”

Baxley deals primarily in juvenile cases where it is not uncommon to have both parents, grandparents and even other family joining prosecutors and the Alabama Department of Human Resources as parties.

“Five or six parties cannot fit well in a law library or conference room unless we forget court proceedings,” Baxley said. “By their very nature they are adversarial. You don't want to have folks in that close of a proximity.”

Space isn’t the only issue plaguing the judicial complex either.

“I'm hopeful that in whatever plan comes about and whatever construction comes about, that technology issues will be addressed as well,” Baxley said.

Enhance Elmore proposes increasing court costs by $100 and booking fees to $100 for those arrested with automatic increases. Much of those fees would go towards a new jail, sheriff’s office and circuit clerk office. The current judicial center would receive a $6.4 million renovation to make the space more usable for the current case load and to accommodate for growth. The Elmore County Circuit Clerk would join the Elmore County Sheriff’s Office in a new $14.2 million building next door. A new Elmore County Jail would be built in a current parking lot to accommodate 480 inmates plus have the ability to reach 600 inmates. The current jail was built for 242 inmates but regularly houses more than 300. 

“After consultation with my fellow judges, the county's plan appears to us to be both adequate and prudent,” Pinkston said. “If implemented, the expanded judicial complex should adequately accommodate the judiciary for the foreseeable future, perhaps an additional 30 years, if not more.”

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