{"id":174213,"date":"2012-03-24T08:11:10","date_gmt":"2012-03-24T13:11:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ktbb.com\/post\/?p=174213"},"modified":"2012-03-26T10:35:41","modified_gmt":"2012-03-26T15:35:41","slug":"officials-await-decision-on-lufkin-federal-courthouse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/?p=174213","title":{"rendered":"Officials Await Decision on Lufkin Federal Courthouse"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ktbb.com\/post\/?attachment_id=174214\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-174214\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2012\/03\/lufkincourthouse2-150x150.png\" alt=\"\" title=\"lufkincourthouse2\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-174214\" \/><\/a>LUFKIN (Staff\/AP) \u2014 It used to be the Post Office in downtown Lufkin. But in the 80s it became the Ward R. Burke Federal Courthouse, a transformation that officials say the famous Texas politician Charlie Wilson helped make possible. But now, because the courthouse doesn\u2019t have a resident judge, it\u2019s on a list of 60 Federal Courthouses across the United States that also don\u2019t have resident judges \u2014 and may close. David Maland, the U.S. District clerk for the Federal courts in East Texas, tells KETK it\u2019s a ranking based on how much use the court is getting, number 1 being the least used. \u201cWhen it all shook out, our Lufkin facility was 45th on a list of 60. Which really is a better place to be,\u201d Maland said.<\/p>\n<p>A local attorney definitely doesn\u2019t think closing the Federal Courthouse is the answer. \u201cI think it\u2019s a shame\u2026because it\u2019s gonna create more problems for people to do things they need to in federal court,\u201d said John Tatum. Tatum says East Texans should be able to have access to the justice system in Lufkin. \u201cThe couple of Federal cases I had\u2026at least you can go over there and have a hearing here with the judge on a teleconference. So it\u2019s just easier. Now we\u2019re gonna have to drive to Beaumont with $4.00 in gas,\u201d Tatum said.<\/p>\n<p>Maland says he and his colleagues have until the 13th of April to give feedback to the 5th Circuit in New Orleans. He says they will make the case that the courthouse should remain open. \u201cWe\u2019ve got a pretty active case pattern and we\u2019re a growing district. Otherwise, we\u2019ll have to build some new place for a judge to stay in the future and that will cost more money than keeping Lufkin open for a while,\u201d Maland said. Maland also says there are 4 other courthouses in the 5th circuit that are ahead of Lufkin on the list, so he says that looks pretty good for Lufkin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>LUFKIN (Staff\/AP) \u2014 It used to be the Post Office in downtown Lufkin. But in the 80s it became the Ward R. Burke Federal Courthouse, a transformation that officials say the famous Texas politician Charlie Wilson helped make possible. But now, because the courthouse doesn\u2019t have a resident judge, it\u2019s on a list of 60 &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/?p=174213\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Officials Await Decision on Lufkin Federal Courthouse<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-174213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news-archive-archives"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-01 18:52:31","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=174213"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":174532,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174213\/revisions\/174532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=174213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=174213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=174213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}