RENDERED: NOVEMBER 2, 2017 

TO BE PUBLISHED 

2016-SC-000008-DG 

BIG SANDY REGIONAL JAIL AUTHORITY 

v. 

ON APPEAL FROM COURT OF APPEALS 

CASE NO. 2015-CA-001464-DR 

FAYETTE CIRCUIT COURT 

NOS. 13-C-08761 & 15-XX-00009 

LEXINGTON-FAYETTE URBAN COUNTY 

GOVERNMENT 

OPINION OF THE COURT BY JUSTICE KELLER 

' 

AFFIRMING ,. _,I 

APPELLANT 

APPELLEE 

Big Sandy Regional Jail Authority (the Authority) sued the LexingtonFayette Urban County Government (the Urban County Government) in district 

court seeking reimbursement for the cost of housing prisoners held pursuant 

to warrants issued by Fayette County courts. The district court found that the 

Urban County Government is entitled to sovereign immunity, and it granted 

the Urban County Government's motion to dismiss. The Authority appealed to 

the cir~uit court, which affirmed, based on its finding that the county of arrest 

controls responsibility for incarceration costs. The circuit court did not 

address the issue of sovereign immunity, which it deemed moot. The Authority 

filed a motion for discretionary review before the Court of Appeals, a motion 
that Court denied. The Authority then sought discretionary review before this 

Court, which we granted. Having reviewed the record, we affirm the circuit 

court but for differe.nt reasons. 

I. BACKGROUND 

In the 1980s, the Kentucky Department of Corrections closed or 

threatened to close county jails in Johnson, Lawrence, Magoffin, and Martin 

Counties.· In order to meet their. statutory obligation to provide facilities for 

incarcerating prisoners, the four countie~ formed the Authority whose pu.rpose 

was to construct and operate a regional jail, the Big Sandy Regional Detention 

Center (the Detenti.on Center). 

) The Authority consists of ten members. Each of the founding counties 

appoints two members, with Johnson County, the most populous of the 

counties, receiving an additional member. The final member is the Johnson 

County Jailer, because the Detention Center is in Johnson County. The 

Authority is an independent body, and the only input the founding counties 

have in the operation of the Detention Center is by way of appointment of the 

Authority's mei:nbers through the respective counties' judge executives. 

The Authority has contracts with the state, the four founding counties, 

and Elliott and Morgan Counties to house their prisoners in the Detention 

Center. In exchange for housing those prisoners, the Authority is paid a per 

diem by the counties and the state, with the four founding counties paying a 

little less than the others. This per diem, along with a small amount from the 

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Detention Center's commissary, constitutes the entirety of the revenue 

available to operate the Detention Center. 

On March 21, 2013, the Authority filed suit against the Urban County 

Government in district court. 1 In its complaint, the Authority listed a number 

of prisoners who had been arrested by an officer from one of the four founding 

counties based on warrants issued by Fayette County courts. Although the. 

Authority believed it had no contractual obligation to do so, the Authority 

agreed to house those prisoners in the Detention Center until officials from the 

Urban County Government could arrange for their transfer to an Urban County 

Government facility. The Authority considered those prisoners to be "Fayette 

County prisoners" and billed the Urban County Government the per diem for· 

each prisoner's stay in the Detention Center. The Urban County Government 

refused to pay, which led to this action. 

The Urban County Government filed a motion to dismiss, and the 

Authority filed a motion for summary judgment. In its motion, the Urban 

County Government argued th;:it it was immune from suit and, if not immune, 

the obligation to pay for the incarceration of prisoners falls on the arresting 

county, not on the county that issued the warrant. In its motion, the Authority 

argued that the Urban County Government had a statutory obligation to pay 

1 We note that the Authority initially named other counties but the Authority 

voluntarily dismissed those counties, choosing to proceed against only the Urban 

County Government. The Authority also initially filed suit in Johnson County district 

court but moved to transfer the action to Fayette County district court, a motion the 

Johnson County district court granted. Finally, we note that the Authority initially 

filed the action on the district court's small claims docket but, without objection, the 

court .transferred it to the regular. docket. 

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for the incarceration of prisoners wh.o were being held pursuant to a warrant 

iss-qed by a Fayette County court. In its response to the Urban County 

Government's motion, the Authority argued that the statute imposing the duty 

on counties to provide for the incarceration of prisoners waives immunity by 

implication. 

The district court found in favor of the Urban County Government and 

dismis~ed the Authority's complaint. In doing so, the court determined that 

the Urban County Government is immune and that immunity had not been 

waived either explicitly or implicitly. The Authority appealed to the circuit 

court, whi~h affirmed, based on its finding that the county of arrest controls 

responsibility for incarceration. The circuit court did not address the issue of 

sovereign immunity. 

On appeal, the Authority argues, as it did below, Jhat Kentucky Revised 

Statute (KRS) 411.025 requires a county that issues an arrest warrant to 

provide for the incarceration of the prisoner arrested pursuant to that warrant, 

regardless of where the arrest occurs. The Urban County Government argues 

that KRS 411.025, when read in its entir~ty and in co:njunction with other 

statutory provisions, requires the arresting county to provide for that 

incarceration, regardless of what county issued the arrest warrant. The Urban 

County Government also argues that it has immunity, which the Authority 

disputes. 

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. II. STANDARD OF REVIEW 

Resolution of this appeal primarily requires us to undertake 

interpretation of a statute. The construction and application of statutes ·is a 

matter of law, which we review de novo, Bob Hook Chevrolet Isuzu., Inc. v~ Com. 

Transp. Cab~net, 983 S.W.2d 488, 490 (Ky. 1998), without any deference to the 

interpretation afforded by the circuit court. Cinelli v. Ward, 997 S.W.2d 474, 

476 (Ky. App. 1998) (citing Louisville Edible Oil Products, Inc. v. Revenue 

Cabinet Commonwealth of Kentucky, 957 S.W.2d 272 (Ky. App. 1997)). 

A. Statutory Interpretation 

1. KRS 441.025 

III. ANALYSIS 

When interpreting a statutory scheme, we seek to effectuate the 

legislature's intent and "[t]he plain meaning of the statutory language is 

presμmed to be what the legislature intended." Stinson v. Commonwealth, 396 

S.W.3d 900, 903 (Ky. 2013) (citing Revenue Cabinet v. H.E. O'Daniel, 153 

S.W.3d 815, 819 (Ky. 2005)). "The plain-meaning rule is consistent with 

directions provided by the legislature on how to interpret the statutes enacted 

by it." Wheeler & Clevenger Oil Co., Inc. v. Washburn, 127 S.W.3d 609, 614 (Ky. 

2004) -(citing KRS 446.015; KRS 446.080(4)). "Only if the statute is ambiguous 

or otherwise frustrates a plain reading, do we resort to extrinsic aids such as 

the statute's legislative. history; the canons of construction; or, especially in the 

case of model or uniform statutes, interpretations by other courts." Stinson, 

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396 S.W.3d at 903 (citing Shawnee Telecom Res., Inc. v. Brown, 354 S.W.3d 

542, 551 (Ky. 2011)). 

KRS 441.025(1) states: "The fiscal court of each county shall provide for 

the incarceration of prisoners arrested in the county or sentenced o~ held by 

order of the courts in the county." This statute is, at best, unclear, and, at 

worst, inapplicable. However, it is the only statute we have. Therefore, we 

must interpret it as b~st we can. 

The Authority argues that a county that issues a warrant for an 

individual is responsible for the costs of incarcerating that individual, even if 

an arrest occurs in another county. The Urban County Government argues 

that the county making the arrest is responsible for the costs of incarceration 

regardless of which county originated the charges or warrant necessitating the 

arrest. The Authority argues that, if the Urban County Government's 

interpretation is correct, there is no reason for the second half of the sentence. 

because the obligation would always fall on the arresting county. That 

argument is. flawed. There are instances where a county, other than the 

arresting county, would be responsible for housing prisoners. For example, 

KRS 411.025 applies post-conviction to prisoners who have been sentenced by 

order of the courts in the county and to inmates held by order of the court as a 

result ofa probation violation. It also applies pre-conviction to inmates held by 

order of the courts pending trial. It would additionally apply to those held for 

contempt violations. 

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However, the Authority's argument that the county that issues a warrant 

is responsible for incarceration costs is equally, if not more, flawed. According 

to the Authority, the arre~ting county is only responsible for the incarceration 

of prisoners if the arresting county is also the county that issued the warrant 

for the prisoner. For this interpretation to be correct, the statute would require 

an "and" instead of an "or" and would have been written as: "The fiscal court of 

each county shall provide for the incarceration of prisoners arrested in the 

county and senten~ed or held by order of the courts in the county." A prisoner 

may be held pursuant to warrants from one county or multiple counties. The 

Authority's argument does not account for such a situ~tion. 

The Court believes that the correct interpretation begins and ends with 

the premise of possession and that a prisoner's status flows from possession 

and control. Thus, the prisoners in this case were prisoners of Johnson, 

Lawrence~ Magoffin, and Martin counties because thos~ counties had 

possession and control of the prisoners via arrest. Once Johnson, Lawrence, 

Magoffin, and Martin counties relinquished the prisoners to Fayette County, 

Fayette County became responsible for the costs of incarceration because the 

prisoners would then be held by Fayette County pursuant to an ord~r of the 

Fayette County courts. 

2. Relying on possession and control in interpreting KRS 441.025 is 

consistent with the statutory scheme and criminal procedure practice. 

a. Statutory Scheme 

KRS 441 applies to the operation and management of county jails and 

assigns financial responsibility for_ those jails to each fiscal court. Each county 

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is obligated to incarcerate its prisoners, an obligation that can be fulfilled by 

providing and maintaining a separate county-run jail or by contracting with 

another county or city to house the county's prisoners. The General Assembly 

did not mandate that counties reimburse each other for the costs of housing 

prisoners held by order or judgment of another county. Had the General 

Assembly wanted to impose that obligation, it could have done so. The absence 

of any such statutory provision further supports our holding that the county 

with possession of the prisoner bears the cost 

b. Criminal procedure practice 

We find additional support for our interpretation in the Kentucky Rules 

of Criminal Procedure. 

Kentucky Rule of Criminal Procedure (RCr) 3.02(1) states: 

An officer making an arrest Uhder a warrant issued upon a 

complaint shall take the arrested person without unnecessary 

delay before a judge as commanded in the warrant. If the arrest is . 

made in a county othe·r than that in which the warrant was issued 

and the arrested person is not taken as commanded in the 

warrant, the arrested person shall be taken before a judge· of the 

county in which the arrest is made, who shall consider the 

defendant for release on personal recognizance and so release the 

arrested person or admit the arrested person to bail for his or her 

appearance before the proper judge .... If the offense is non bailable, 

or if the person arrested is unable to give bail, the judge shall 

commit that person to jail and he or she shall be taken as 

commanded in the warrant within a reasonable time by an officer· 

of the county in which it was issued. 

In other words, an arrested person must be taken without unreasonable 

delay before a judge if not delivered to the county issuing the warrant. Thus, 

the rule contemplates that the county of arrest has a responsibility for the 

prisoners in its possession, and as such; the county of arrest should bear the 

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costs. The rule further provides for transportation of the prisoner to the county 

that issued the warrant. 

The Authority is concerned that there is no time limit during which a 

charging county must pick up and transport a prisoner who is arrested and 

held in another county. The Authority reasons that Fayette County will delay 

picking up its prisoners in Johnson County to avoid the costs of incarceration. __,, 

There is not an established definition for "unreasonable delay;" however; the 

courts have held that 48 hours is not unreasonable, see County of Riverside v. 

McLaughlin, 500 U.S. 44 (1991), and some local court rules in the 

Commonwealth provide that the defendant will be arraigned no later than at 

the next regular motion hour. Ky R Knott Magoffin Cir. Ct. Crim. Cases 2(A). 

Thus, the county of arrest should release the ·prisoner or establish bail for the 

prisoner within 48 to 72 hours. 

If not released, the prisoner will remain in the jail until the county 

issuing the warrant arranges for transportation, which must be done within a 

reasonable time. If the county issuing the warrant does not want the prisoner 

to go free, that county will arrange for transportation. Otherwise, it runs the 

risk that a judge in the arrest~ng county will release the prisoner on bail. Law 

enforcement officers, and indeed elected county offidals, should have an 

interest in the prosecution of the perpetrators of alleged crimes in their · 

communities. Furthermore, prosecuting attorneys have an interest in the just 

resolution of alleged crimes committed in the counties from which they were 

elected. We understand and note the Authority's concerns regarding undue 

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delay and its potential fiscal impact. However, for the aforementioned reasons, 

this Court has confidence in the abilities of our various counties and their 

elected officials to cooperate in the orderly administration of justice. 

· B. Contract 

.Finally, it is undisputed that the Authority has contracts with the state, 

the four founding counties, and Elliott and Morgan Counties to house their 

prisoners in the Detention Center. The Authority has stated thatit has no 

legal obligation to accept prisoners from the Urban County Government or from 

any other county with which it has not contracted. The Authority is correct to 

the extent that it is only responsible for housing prisoners brought to it by 

counties with which it has a contract. For example, the Authority is not 

required to accept prisoners who were arrested in Fayette County because the 

Authority does not have a contract with Fayette County and KRS 441.025 

mandates Fayette _County to provide for the incarceration of its prisoners. 

Certainly, the Authority can accept prisoners brought to it by ot}J.er counties, 

' 

but it does so at its own risk. As we have stated herein, law enforce~ent 

officials in the counties of Johnson, Lawrence, Magoffin, and Martin had an 

obligation to arrest these individ;uals who had outstanding warrants against 

them, and therefore, the Authority was obligated to.accept these prisoners who 

were arrested by officers in those counties. The Authority is entitled to 

payment for its costs of housing these prisoners, an entitlement that comes 

through the Authority's contract, which needs to be enforced aga.lnst the 

appropriate counties: In this case, those counties are Johnson, Lawrence, 

10 
Magoffin, and Martin which are obligated to pay the costs as the arresting 

counties. 

IV. CONCLUSION 

For the above reasons, we affirm the circuit court's order because the 

Urban County Government was not responsible for the costs of incarcerating 

prisoners not in its possession. 

All sitting. Minton, C.J., Cunningham, Hughes and Keller, JJ., concur. 

Venters, J., concurs in result only by separate opinion which VanMeter, J., 

joins. Wright, J., dissents by separate opinion. 

VENTERS, J., CONCURRING IN RESULT ONLY: I concur in the result 

reached by the Majority opinion, but I disagree with its reasoning. KRS 

441.025(1) cannot answer the question before this Court because it was 

drafted and enacted by the legislature to perform an entirely different function. 

Wringing that statute to squeeze out an answer to the question before us is like 

shaking an apple tree hoping that a peach will fall out. It may be, as the 

Majorify laments, the only statute we have; but it will never produce the fruit 

we need to resolve this dispute. 

Like the clever image that simultaneously appears to be the silhouette of 

a vase or the silhouettes of two faces, KRS 441.025 when applied to this 

controversy is perfectly ambiguous; a riddle without a solution. However, when 

applied to its intended purpose, the statute performs perfectly well, and its 

meaning is perfectly clear and unambiguous. 

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. . . 

·I respectfully suggest that KRS 441.025(1) is simply inapplicable to the 

present controversy. We are loath to say that we have no law that governs this 

issue, but I find it preferable to accept the reality of that unappealing choice 

than to infuse ·that statute with meaning never put there by the legislature. As 

its title .portends, KRS 441.025 simply places the fiscal responsibility for · 

incarcerating local prisoners-those who have either b~en arrested in the 

county or committed to jail by a court in the county-on the county 

· government rathe_r thah upon local municipalities or upon the state 

government. Each subsection of KRS 411.025 is devoted to that purpose, and 

that purpose is entirely consistent with the remaining provisions of KRS 

Chapter 441. 

KRS '" 441.025(1) reads as follows.: "The fiscal court of each county shall 

·provide for the incarceration of pris.oners arrested in the county or sentenced 

or held by order of the courts in the county." A less concise but grammatically 

equivalent restatement of the statute would read as follows: 

The fiscal court of each county shall provide for the incarceration 

of prisoners who have either been 1) arrested in the county or 2) . 

sentenced or held by order of the courts in the county. 

Plainly stated, county government ("the fiscal court") bears. the fiscal 

responsibility for the incarceration of a person 1) arrested in that county; or 2) 

sentenced or held pursuant to the order of a court in that county. The 

prisoners that are the subject of the pending controversy ~t equally within 

either category. They were arrested in counties served by the Big Sandy 

Regional Jail; and they were sentenced or held by orders of a court in Fayette 

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\ 

County. KRS 441.025 does not differentiate or prioritize the fi~cal 

responsibility for incarceration in either circumstance. I see nothing in the 

language or grammatical structure of the statute that fayors the county of 

arrest over the county of the court order, or vice versa. The statute cannot 

resolve the conflict we face because it was not written to allocate the 

responsibility of incarceration between competing counties; it only establishes 

that county governments, rather than cities or the state, must bear that 

burden. 

Consequently, I would adhere to the general rule that in the absence of 

applicable statutes, common law principles are controlling. See Kenton & 

Campbell Benev. Burial Ass'n ·v. Goodpaster, 200 S.W.2d 120, 127 (Ky. 1946). 

Insofar as I can determine, there is no common law cause of action for a 

Kentucky county (or a regional entity standing in its place) housing a prisoner 

to recover its expenses from another county. I would therefore dismiss the 

claim of Big Sandy, leaving it holding the bag until the legisl;:iture fills the 

statutory gap with a solution of its choosing. Accordingly, I would affirm, as 

does the Majority opinion, albeit ·upo:r:i different grounds. 

VanMetet, J., joins. 

WRIGHT, J., DISSENTING: I respectfully dissent frorh the majority's 

. interpretation of KRS 441.025(1). The statute reads: "[t]he fiscal court of each 

county shall provide for the .incarceration of prisoners arrested in the county or 

sentenced or held by order of the courts in the county." I point out that, in 

construing~ statute, "[w]e presume that the General Assembly intended for the 

13 
·statute to be construed as a whole, for all of its parts to have meaning; and for 

it to harmonize with related statutes." Shawnee Telecom Res., Inc. v. Brown, 

354 S.W.3d 542, 551 (Ky. 2011) (citing Hall v. Hospitality Resources, Inc., 276 

S.W.3d 775 (Ky. 2008); Lewis v. Jackson Er:iergy Cooperative Corporation, 189 

S.W.~d 87 (Ky. 2005)). 

Appellant, Big Sandy Regional Jail Authority, argues that if the arresting · 

county is responsible for the cost of incarceration regardless of the county from 

which the charges or warrant o'riginated; then the latter ~lause of the sentence 

is meaningless. The majority disputes this interpretation and lists a number: of 

circumstances in which a county other than the arresting county would be 

responsible for the cost of incarceration. A closer examination of each of the 

circumstances listed by the majority is necessary for this analysis. 

First, the majority points to postconviction prisoners sentenced by order 

of a county's courts. In this instance, a prisoner would have tO be in the same 

county as the court handing down the sentence. If the sentence is for a felony 

conviction, then the state is responsible for the cost of post-judgment 

incarceration. If the sentence is for a misdemeanor, then the sentencing court 

would order the prisoner to be incarcerated in the jail of the county where the 

court is located and in which the crime occurred. 

The next instance listed in the majority's opinion involves prisoners held 

by court order for probation violations. The court hearing an. alleged probation 

violation and .ordering a revocation would be the sentencing court. The court 

would order the prisoner incarcerated in the county jail. The state would be 

14 
responsible for felony prisoners and the county in which the court was located 

and in ·which the crime occurred would be responsible for misdemeanor 

prisoners. 

The majority opinion also listed prisoners held for contempt violations as 

a possible example of a circumstance in which a county other than the 

arresting county could potentially be responsible for housing prisoners. 

Anyone sentenced for a contempt violation would be sen,tenced by the court in 

which the contempt occurred. Therefore, the court would order the prisoner 

incarcerated in the jail of the county in which the court was located and the 

contempt occurred. 

The final circumstance listed by the majority is what occurred in the 

present case. In this scenario, an inmate is held pre-conviction by order of .the 

court pending trial. The prisoners in the current case were arrested on 

warrants from Fayette County courts. The warrants were orders from Fayette 

I 

County courts to arrest person accused of violating the ~aw in Fayette County 

and to bring them before the courts in Fayette County. KRS 441.025 (1) states: 

"the fiscal court of each county shall provide for the incarceration of prisoners . 

. . held by order of the courts in the county." The inmates here were held 

pursuant to orders from courts located in Fayette County, where the crimes 

occurred. 

The officers in the counties served by the jail lacked the legal authority to 

arrest the prisoners without the orders to arrest from Fayette County. The 

statute is clear that the county responsible for the incarceration is the one in 

15 
which the court that ordered the incarceration is located. The court located in 

the county in which the crime occurred is the court that would have the case 

and the court that would be ordering the prisoner held. 

"[I]t has been long established the specific provision takes 

precedence over the general prov~sion." Porter v. Commonwealth, 841 S.W.2d 

166, 168-69 (Ky. 1992) (citing Morgan County Board of Education v. Elliott, 260 

Ky. 672, 86 S.W.2d 670 (1935)). The first portion of KRS 441.025(1) provides 

that each county will be responsible for the incarceration of prisoners arrested 

in the county. The second portion provides that the county will be responsible 

for prisoners held by orders of the courts in the county. If a person is arrested 

pursuant to a warrant from Fayette County, then he is being held by order of 

· the courts in Fayette County. Therefore, the more specific provision that a . 

county is responsible for prisoners held by orders of the courts of the county 

controls-and Fayette County would be responsible for prisoners arrested 

pursuant to orders of the courts of Fayette County. 

Pursuant to KRS 431.005(1), an officer may arrest a person if they 

observe the crime being committed, have sufficient probable cause of a felony 

committed in their jurisdiction, or are ordered to do so by order of a court. If 

the arrest occurs because the officer observed the crime being committed or 

had sufficient probable cause evidence of a felony committed in the officer's 

jurisdiction, then the crime occurred in the county that incarcerated the 

·prisoner. In short, an officer makes an arrest either for crimes that occur in 

his county or pursuant to court order. 

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The majority states that "[t]he General Assembly did not mandate that 

counties reimburse each other for the cost of housing prisoners held by order 

or judgment of another County." I must respectfully disagree. The statute 

specifically states which counties shall provide for the incarceration of 

prisoners. It is not for this court to second-guess, alter or revise the 

responsibility provided by the legislature. The fact that the legislature did not 

specify how and when one county would reimburse another does not change 

the fact that it specified who was responsible to provide for the incarceration. 

The language of the statute is clear and its meaning is plain. Each 

circumstance described in the statute places the responsibility for 

incarceration on the county in which the crime occurred and whose courts· 

have the case. For those reasons, I dissent from the majority and would 

reverse and remand. 

COUNSEL FOR APPELLANT: 

Nelson Theodore Sparks 

COUNSEL FOR APPELLEE: 

Charles Edwards Ill 

Michael Keith Horn 

LFUCG Department of Law 

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