Jackson judge starts jail book campaign

By Frank Weir Legal News Judge Darryl Mazur knows of one thing in Jackson that is seemingly timeless. The shabby county jail inmate library. At the annual meeting of the Jackson County Bar Association recently, Mazur noted that, "When I was a practicing criminal defense attorney, I spent a lot of time interviewing my clients in the library who were incarcerated at the county jail. I always noticed how most of the books there had no covers. I took an intern in my office over there last week and I asked to see the library. It looks just the same. There were 400 or 500 books and maybe a quarter of them had covers. "Why don't we do something to improve this? I would like the bar association to get behind me and help me develop a book program and bring some books over there." Mazur said that bar members and anyone else are invited to bring fiction paperback books to his office in the courthouse for donation to the jail library. "My ultimate goal is to coordinate a public drive annually so, in the interim, if any member of the public wants to contribute they can reach me at my office phone: 517-768-8553." Mazur added that he had spoken to jail supervisor Captain Bob Vogt about his book program and Vogt was very supportive. "Captain Vogt told me that anyone reading a book isn't creating a problem," Mazur said. Published: Fri, Jul 10, 2015