Washington County Court, Fort Edward

Washington County Court Information

Court details are provided as a public reference and were verified against the New York State Unified Court System at the time of publication. Judges, hours, and contact information can change; confirm current details with the court before relying on them.

What Washington County Court Handles

The Unified Court System lists the court as Washington County Supreme and County Court, and the court locator describes its criminal work as felony processing and hearings plus shared misdemeanor jurisdiction. Supreme Court, with Hon. Amy N. Quinn in chambers here, hears civil matters; County Court hears criminal ones, with exclusive authority to try felonies and appeals from the local courts. Washington County’s two judges, Hon. Kelly S. McKeighan and Hon. Adam D. Michelini, are the chambers listed for County Court, Family Court, and Surrogate’s Court alike, so the same judge who hears a felony may hear the family’s custody case. Appellate Division Justice Stan L. Pritzker also keeps chambers in the building.

The county’s felony docket reflects a rural county wrapped around the Route 4, Route 22, and Route 29 corridors: felony DWI and vehicular assault, drug felonies concentrated around Hudson Falls, burglary of farms, camps, and seasonal homes, grand larceny, felony assault, and felony-level domestic violence.

From a Town Court to Fort Edward

A felony complaint is arraigned in the town or village court for the place of arrest, or, after hours, at the Washington County Centralized Arraignment Part, which the county’s pretrial services office lists alongside County Court and the local courts as a court that can release defendants on conditions. Its location and session times are not published; the County Court clerk and the Sheriff’s Office can confirm when a defendant will be seen. Because most of the county’s local courts meet on limited schedules, timing after an arrest matters more here than in counties with daily city courts. At arraignment the judge sets release conditions and, in a domestic case, an order of protection; if you are held, CPL 180.80 requires release when the grand jury has not acted within the statutory deadline.

The District Attorney presents the case to the county grand jury, whose schedule is not published. An indictment moves the case to County Court for a second arraignment, then discovery, motions, and a plea or trial. A felony reduced to a misdemeanor before indictment stays in the local court, which makes the first weeks after arrest the most important stretch of the case; the sequence is on our page on what happens after an arrest.

The Felony Drug Treatment Part

Washington County lists two specialty parts, both at 383 Broadway: the County Court Felony Drug Treatment Part, Judge McKeighan presiding, reached through the resource coordinator at (518) 480-6975, and a Family Court Drug Treatment Part before Judge Michelini. The felony part is the county’s treatment court: an eligible defendant whose charge is driven by addiction enters supervised treatment under a plea agreement that ends in a reduced or dismissed charge on completion, and in a sentence on failure. The county has no integrated domestic violence court, veterans treatment court, or mental health court, so those cases are handled in the ordinary parts.

The District Attorney, the Jail, and the Building

Cases are prosecuted by the Washington County District Attorney’s Office, in Building C of the Municipal Center at 383 Broadway, (518) 746-2525. District Attorney J. Anthony Jordan was re-elected unopposed in November 2025, and the office has a First Assistant District Attorney and five assistant district attorneys. Defendants held before trial are at the Washington County Correctional Facility next door at 399 Broadway, opened in 2003 and run by the Sheriff’s Office under Sheriff Jeffrey J. Murphy, (518) 746-2475. The county’s pretrial services office supervises defendants released on conditions.

The Municipal Center has public parking on site and adjacent, a ground-level main entrance, and elevators to every public floor. Expect security screening at the entrance, and reach court security at (518) 480-6955. E-filing is mandatory for designated case types. The Commissioner of Jurors, Christopher Boucher, is in the same building at (518) 480-6980.

The Local Courts That Feed Washington County Court

Washington County is seventeen towns and eight villages, with twenty local criminal courts: the town courts of Argyle, Cambridge, Dresden, Easton, Fort Ann, Fort Edward, Granville, Greenwich, Hampton, Hartford, Hebron, Jackson, Kingsbury (which covers Hudson Falls), Putnam, Salem, White Creek, and Whitehall, and the village courts of Cambridge, Granville, and Whitehall. See the Washington County page, the full courts directory, or our felony defense page, or call 518-245-9109 for a free consultation.