The Richmond Register - Local courts to host pilot misdemeanor Drug Court Program ...

Published: January 09, 2010 03:37 pm

Local courts to host pilot misdemeanor drug court program

Special to the Register

Madison and Clark district courts will host a pilot program to treat drug addiction, the Kentucky Administrative Office of the Courts announced Wednesday.

Madison District Judge Earl-Ray Neal will oversee a Drug Court program for misdemeanor offenders in the 25th Judicial District, which covers Madison and Clark counties.

Neal is volunteering his time to conduct the biweekly Drug Court sessions, and credited judges Brandy O. Brown and Charles Hardin for their help with the program.

“Drug Courts in Madison and Clark counties at the juvenile and felony court level have been a shining example of Kentucky’s success in specialty courts,” Neal said. “This expansion will allow us to reach a greater number of people and to reach them earlier in their addiction.”

Madison Circuit Judge Jean C. Logue presides over the felony Drug Court for Madison and Clark counties, and credited Neal with helping to bring the program to the district court level.

“This program will work in conjunction with the felony Drug Court program to reach people earlier before their drug addiction problems lead them to commit serious crimes,” Logue said.

“The new misdemeanor Drug Court will provide our community with a positive tool to address the ever growing drug problem. I look forward to working with Judge Neal in expanding and improving our Drug Court program,” Logue said.

Madison County Attorney Marc Robbins said he believes the program will serve the needs of people suffering from drug addiction.

“I am very pleased that a misdemeanor Drug Court program will soon be operational in our district,” Robbins said. “This should allow us to reach offenders whose conduct has not risen to the felony level, but who still suffer from serious addictions.”

Clark County Attorney Brian Thomas is similarly excited about the program.

“I am excited about the implementation of a misdemeanor drug court which can be utilized to assist in helping those who suffer from addiction to illegal drugs and prescription medication break that cycle and get assistance,” Thomas said. “This program will be another weapon in the arsenal against drug use and drug abuse and will allow us to intervene at a district court level to provide accountability, treatment and hope to those who suffer from this addiction.”

Neal will conduct Drug Court meetings in both Richmond and Winchester, and the program will begin accepting referrals this month. The program is being funded by a grant from the Bureau of Justice Administration.

Audrey Posvic, who serves as coordinator for felony Drug Court in Madison and Clark counties, also will coordinate the misdemeanor program.

North Dakota Supreme Court News

Friday, Jan. 8, 2010
Happy Birthday, Drug Court!
The state's first adult drug court will be nine years old this week, and there's going to be a party!

District Judge Gail Hagerty will be honored at this year's event. She has been part of the drug court team since the planning stages and has promoted drug courts in North Dakota. District Judge Bruce Haskell, who is the lead judge for the South Central Drug Court, said that Governor John and First Lady Mikey Hoeven, Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem, Chief Justice Gerald VandeWalle, Michelle Gayette, Rep. Ron Carlisle, and Senator Byron Dorgan have been honored as North Dakota leaders who have supported drug court programs.

The South Central Judicial District Drug Court began operation on January 5, 2001, and a celebration of the achievements of the first nine years will be held Friday morning (January 8) at 8:30 at the Burleigh County Courthouse in Bismarck. The party will be hosted by the Bruce M. VanSickle Inn of Court, a group of lawyers and judges who strive toward excellence and civility in the practice of law.

The Drug Court has 19 participants at the present time. All the participants are non-violent, chemically addicted individuals who have pleaded guilty to drug or alcohol offenses. The program was planned and initiated through the leadership of the Department of Corrections.

Ninety-one people have successfully completed the program. One-hundred sixty-three have been involved in the program—117 men and 46 women. Seventy-nine were sentenced to Drug Court as part of a driving-under-the-influence sentence, seventy-seven were sentenced for drug offenses, and seven were sentenced for drug-related felony offenses.

Participants attend court sessions each week and are involved in intensive treatment and probation programs. They are tested for drug and alcohol use several times each week. They are required to work, attend school, or do community service forty hours each week.

Court sessions often begin with a speaker. Prosecutors, defense attorneys, police officers, pastors, treatment providers, and others who have worked with chemically addicted people have spoken to the group.

Each participant makes an appearance each time they appear in court and discusses their progress with the judge. Participants move through three phases of the drug court program and earn incentives as they progress. During the later phases, the number of court appearances and the intensity of supervision decrease. A minimum of a year in the program is required for commencement.

District Judges Bruce Haskell and Gail Hagerty are the drug court judges. Penny Blotsky is the probation officer for the program, and Michelle Gayette coordinates treatment services, which are provided through West Central Human Services.

Jan. 5, 2010

Our View on Crime and Punishment: Therapy with Teeth

Drug courts save money, reduce crowding, aid non-violent offenders.
In the mid-1990s, Carson Fox was a prosecutor in conservative Lexington, S.C., where being tough on crime comes with the territory. But another social undercurrent was also at work. "We found that in talking to citizens, nearly everyone had been touched by addiction and wanted to know if we were doing something that works, and if not, why not?" Fox recalled. He became part of an experiment: drug courts.

Like so many who've seen them in action, Fox is now an advocate of this alternative to regular courts. Their aim is to get at the underlying problem — through "therapy with teeth," as one judge put it.

Drug courts are only for non-violent offenders whose crimes, from marijuana possession to theft, are connected to abuse or addiction. Participants typically appear weekly before a judge and case workers for as long as 18 months. They submit to drug tests, treatment and more. If they graduate, their records are often wiped clean. Dropouts can go to prison, and many do. Studies vary widely, but they tend to show that well-administered adult drug courts can reduce recidivism by up to 35%. Not a magic bullet, obviously, but that is a lot of lives saved.

For lower-income participants, the courts can be a once-in-a-lifetime chance at sustained treatment. They have buy-in from the right as well as the left: The Bush and Clinton administrations both directed federal funding to state and local drug courts. Since the first court opened in Florida in 1989, they have expanded to every state and now number around 2,100.

Critics argue that those who flunk out might end up serving longer sentences and giving up privacy. But participation is voluntary. Arguments that they cause more arrests seem overblown. If expanded further, drug courts have the potential to help reduce soaring taxpayer costs, relieve prison overcrowding and give non-violent offenders a better shot at rehabilitation.

All this is sorely needed because the justice and prison system is in crisis. More than one in 100 U.S. adults are in prison, and a record 7.2 million are under supervision. While tough sentences have proved to be an essential tool for getting repeat violent offenders off the streets, separating out non-violent offenders makes sense and saves dollars.

Some drug courts are better than others. Success rates depend a lot on the dedication and quality of the judges and their teams.

The 55,000 adults in drug court programs make up only a small fraction of the nation's 1.5 million non-violent, drug-related offenders. But cuts triggered by the wider financial crisis could shrink that number. More publicity and public support are needed. The U.S. Sentencing Commission, which advises Congress on policy, is considering making drug courts a priority. That would be a useful step.

Drug court graduates regularly testify to lives turned around from addiction, prostitution, shoplifting and more. That's the kind of success that turned prosecutor Fox into a believer —and is worth aiming for.

Posted at 12:21 AM/ET, October 21, 2008 in Law/Judiciary - Editorial, USA TODAY editorial | Permalink

Opposing Opinion: Drug Courts Don't Work

Well, let's face it...since drug courts exist, and you happen to be headed for one, you may be the one to have to make drug court work. This can only be done by a determination to do the home work, get through it and get out. Otherwise, it can be a revolving door.

Try to muster a support group to back you, parents, drug free friends, anyone and everyone that will back your efforts. Failing drug court has some very unpleasant ramifications. You don't want to go there.

Go to NA, go to counseling, show up for drug court meetings on time. Dress like you care about yourself. Don't cheat and do some drugs, fail your UA, and then try to lie to the judge or your drug court supervisor. Stay away from druggie ex-pals, and yes, do make them EX-pals. This is a temptation you don't need.

If you follow the rules, take one day at a time, before you know it, you'll be a drug court graduate, and drug free. That's a pretty good feeling. Then, the next step is starting your new and improved life.

So, don't let anyone discourage you. Drug courts do have problems, but you can make it just like others have, and on the plus side, they may just be your way out to being drug free. It's really your call, no one else's.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


By Morris Hoffman


"There are only two problems with drug courts. They don't work, and they turn judges into intrusive agents of the Nanny State.

Independent evaluations of drug courts have been mixed, but many show that drug courts have no, or very little, impact on re-arrest recidivism. In Denver, for example, where I sit as a trial judge, an evaluation of our drug court done by the insiders who ran it claimed enormous reductions in recidivism. But when independent evaluators from the University of Denver looked at the program, they found that it reduced recidivism from a depressing 58% down to a still depressing 53%. Even that 5-point drop was well within the study's margin of error.

But it's not just that drug courts don't work, or don't work well. They have the perverse effect of sending more drug defendants to prison, because their poor treatment results get swamped by an increase in the number of drug arrests. By virtue of a phenomenon social scientists call "net-widening," the very existence of drug courts stimulates drug arrests.

Police are no longer arresting criminals, they are trolling for patients. Denver's drug arrests almost tripled in the two years after we began our drug court. At the end of those two years, we were sending almost twice the number of drug defendants to prison than we did before drug court.

Drug courts also turn judges from neutral magistrates into a combination of treatment cheerleader and substitute parent. When we try to treat addiction either as a simple disease or a matter of criminal choice, and drug users as moral inpatients, the only thing we accomplish is to create a dangerous and untrained judiciary that thinks it can intrude into the lives of citizens for as long as it takes to cure them.

As a state felony trial judge, I understand the scourge of drugs as well as anyone. But trying to cover up our national schizophrenia over drug policy with the veneer of ineffective, even counterproductive, drug courts does no good, except perhaps to make judges feel better when we send our treatment failures to prison.

Morris Hoffman is a state trial judge in Denver and an adjunct professor of law at the University of Colorado.