Owen: `I am extremely pleased to be serving Henderson County'

Henderson County Attorney James Owen released figures regarding case dispositions, fine and court costs assessments, and hot check collection figures for the County Attorney's Office. In the six and one-half years Mr. Owen has served as County Attorney, the office has disposed of more cases, assessed more fines and returned more money to merchants than under any predecessor in the office.

Since Mr. Owen took office in January 2001, the County Attorney's Office has disposed of 17,756 criminal misdemeanor cases, with assessed fines and court costs in excess of $11,416,750.00. "I am extremely pleased to be serving Henderson County at this time in its history," said Owen. "Many fine people have served this county as County Attorney and I am very pleased to hold this office. I believe the hard work performed by them is also reflected in our accomplishments. "

In addition to criminal prosecution numbers, the County Attorney's Office also reported that since January 2001, the Hot Check division of the office has collected 26,684 bad checks and returned to merchants the sum of $2,184,783.00 in restitution and fees. "I cannot stress enough how proud I am of this accomplishment," Owen said. "At least one of our County Commissioners has referred to this issue as a `petty theft' problem, but I consider it a very serious problem because of the aggregate harm it does to our business community and economy."

Other successes cited by Owen since taking office in 2001 is the creation of the second court at law, raising awareness of the Henderson County Hospital Authority's responsibilities to the citizens of Henderson County, and increasing the collection of fines assessed in misdemeanor prosecutions. Owen acknowledges that some of these changes have not been without their critics.

"Yes, there are critics and there always will be, but in the end, in every decision that we have addressed that has raised critical comments, the course taken by the commissioners' court in support of my office has been proven by time to be correct," Owen said.

"One of my favorite quotes on critics comes from President Theodore Roosevelt. President Roosevelt said, `It is not the critic who counts. Not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause. Who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those timid souls who know neither victory or defeat.'"