NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF-TV) — Chief Deputy Clerk Julius Sloss of the Davidson County Criminal Court admits his office made a mistake.
Julius Sloss told NewsChannel 5 Investigates that they spent days investigating what went wrong with Bricen Rivers’ release from the Davidson County Jail – when they noticed something.
The documents his office sent did not include all the bond conditions or instructions on how to handle Rivers’ release.
Had the jail officials seen these conditions, they would’ve known that a judge ordered Rivers only to be released to his bonding company where they make sure a GPS device was installed.
Rivers would instead walk out of jail on June 24, without any supervision.
The same man now sitting in a Mississippi jail for the murder of Lauren Johansen.
A man who Lauren’s father once warned the courts against setting free, because he believed her life would be at risk.
Rivers was charged with murder just days later after Johansen’s body was discovered beaten and wrapped in trash bags.
Harrison County Sheriff’s deputies say it took another six hours to finally arrest Rivers who had been hiding in the woods nearby.
“It’s tragic what happened,” Sloss said.
Sloss says while these types of mistakes rarely happen in his office, accountability starts with him.
His office was in charge of relaying Judge Cheryl Blackburn’s orders to the jail before Rivers could be released.
Sloss says the employee who made the mistake will face disciplinary action, although he wouldn’t specify what that might entail.
For now, Sloss says the goal is finding ways to limit human error as much as possible.
“We’ve already talked with our IT people about what can we change or code in the system that will stop the person when they’re creating the bond release to be sent to the sheriff. Something that will stop them and ask the questions: Are you sure there are no conditions? Are you sure all of the conditions have been included in this release,” Sloss said.
Brooke’s Bonding company eventually fitted Rivers with a GPS monitoring device from Freedom Monitoring the same day Rivers was released.
They say Rivers was released late, which is why they turned to a different GPS monitoring company other than what was listed in Judge Blackburn’s order.
Freedom Monitoring later sent the courts a statement saying they only got a copy of the order four days after they had already installed Rivers’ GPS device.
They say this is why they had no reason to challenge Rivers when he said he planned to move back to Mississippi, even though he wasn’t allowed to leave Davidson County.
Brooke’s Bonding company knew of all these conditions and signed this paperwork, so it’s still unclear how none of this was relayed to Freedom Monitoring.
“Now it’s up for discussion as to what can be improved from other agencies' standpoint, but as I mentioned, we’re going to put up as many stopgap measures in place as possible from our end to make sure that kind of mistake doesn’t occur on our end,” Sloss said.
Sloss says he’s already been a part of meetings to discuss changes to how they communicate bond conditions more effectively. Some of those meetings centered around new legislation that went into effect in July.
While some may feel Nashville failed Lauren Johansen and no changes will bring her back, Sloss hopes these are mistakes every city can learn from.
“Understand that we are working every day to try to make sure our office is not susceptible to making a mistake that could influence a tragedy like this,” Sloss said.
Sloss is also recommending a standardized system to all judges, so these release orders look the same and everyone knows what to look for.
He also says he plans to sit down with both the sheriff’s office and district attorney’s office to better improve communication of these bond orders.
