It was no accident that Douglas Maupin spent 83 days in jail after being arrested on a 6-year-old warrant for failure to appear for jury duty.

State District Judge Greg Brewer acknowledged Friday that he knew Maupin had been sitting for months in the Collin County Detention Facility. He said he decided not to set a court hearing date for Maupin – or review his requests for a court-appointed attorney – until after some traffic citations were settled.

"The thing is, Mr. Maupin shows a lack of respect for the courts. He doesn't show up for jury duty or pay his traffic tickets," Brewer, of the 366th District Court, said in a telephone interview Friday.

Maupin, 34, was taken into custody on the 2003 warrant after he was stopped for going 65 mph in a 45-mph zone in Parker on Feb. 15. A municipal judge set a $1,500 bond, which required the full amount in cash. Maupin, a masonry contractor who recently lived in Allen, said he didn't have the money, and his friends and family couldn't afford to help him.

He wrote a letter, postmarked April 30, to the DMN Problem Solver column at The Dallas Morning News. At first, when The News started researching Maupin's situation, his case appeared to have simply fallen through the cracks.

The 2003 warrant was signed by a judge who has since retired. Maupin's case was assigned to the 366th District Court, but state District Judge Chris Oldner, of the 416th District Court, handles all administrative contempt cases. A clerk in Brewer's office verified that the case belonged to Oldner.

But Oldner said last week he had no idea that Maupin was in the jail. Upon hearing about Maupin's situation from The News on May 8, the judge released Maupin from jail. Oldner, a Republican, accepted responsibility and promised an investigation. He called the situation "unacceptable," and said he didn't know why "the process failed to notify us."

A review of inmate paperwork this week, however, shows that Brewer had been handling Maupin's case, at least since March. That's when Maupin first asked for a court-appointed attorney. At that point, he had already been in jail for more than a month.

Eleven days after the request was made, Brewer's office denied Maupin's request. The paperwork, which typically is filled out by jail and courthouse personnel, informed Maupin: "Spoke with clerk of the 366th. She said Judge Brewer does not want to appoint counsel until he speaks with you."

A month later, Maupin's second request to start the court-appointed attorney process was denied. That response stated: "The judge will speak with you about counsel when you go to court."

Collin County Sheriff's Department spokesman John Norton said that the jail notified the court four times that Maupin was still in jail.

Brewer, a Republican who has been on the bench since 2007, said Maupin's case was the only one that he took from his predecessor. He said Maupin needed to clear his traffic tickets before the judge would set a hearing on the failure to appear for jury duty.

Maupin arrived at the jail with seven outstanding toll tickets, as well as two traffic tickets in Arlington that he had failed to pay. "I know it was my responsibility, but I didn't have the money," Maupin said.

The judge's decision to wait created what amounted to a Catch-22: Collin County jail policy does not allow another city to come get an inmate until all legal matters are completed in that county.

The Arlington police said they were not aware that Maupin was being held until they were notified by The News on May 8. Within an hour, an Arlington municipal judge signed off on Maupin's release for time served.

"They have to call us and tell us they're ready for us to come get them," said Lt. Blake Miller of the Arlington Police Department. "If they would have said he was ready for Arlington pickup, we would have gone and got him, and he would have sat in jail here for a day or two and then been let out."

Brewer said it was not his court's responsibility to figure out how Maupin should settle his Arlington tickets.

"Obviously, you're trying to lay blame somewhere," Brewer said. "I can't contact Arlington. I'm not going to contact Arlington. I don't take care of traffic tickets. We didn't ignore him. He had to take care of his stuff in Arlington."

When told that Maupin's case had also been listed as a felony instead of a civil case within the court system, Brewer said he was unaware it was mislabeled. "That was a mistake on someone's part, whoever entered it. Probably it was listed because it was in the 366th. It shouldn't have been listed like that," he said.

Brewer said that the Board of District Judges will discuss what happened to Maupin and see if "we need to change the way we handle" contempt of court cases.

"I'm not comfortable with anyone sitting in jail," he said. "They need to get to where they're going, or they need to be released. I'm not comfortable wasting people's money. Obviously, if one person falls through or sits in there, we don't want it to happen again."

At an average cost of $69.70 per day for a Collin County inmate, Maupin's stay in jail cost the county roughly $5,785.

Since his release last week, Maupin said he has been approached by some attorneys about filing a lawsuit. He said he's not sure what he's going to do, other than try to get his life back together and search for his 2-year-old female pug. The dog went missing when he was in jail. He also was evicted from his rental home, and his truck was repossessed.

"Mainly, I'm just really concerned and confused," he said. "I really didn't know what to do."

This new column is for you, our readers. Each week, I'll hunt down experts to answer your questions or speak with authorities to get your problems fixed.

Your trash hasn't been picked up for months? Write me. Feel you've been ripped off? Let me know. Aware of wrongdoing? I want to hear what you know.

You can look for DMN Problem Solver's answers here each week, as well as on the DMN Investigates blog, dallasnews.com/investigatesblog.

To contact DMN Problem Solver:

E-mail: investigate@dallasnews.com

Call: 214-977-2952

Write: Katie Fairbank, P.O. Box 655237, Dallas, Texas 75265.