Pubdate: Sat, 02 Mar 2013
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2013 The New York Times Company
Contact: http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/lettertoeditor.html
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Mosi Secret

OUTSIDE BOX, FEDERAL JUDGES OFFER ADDICTS A NEW PATH

Federal judges around the country are teaming up with prosecutors to 
create special treatment programs for drug-addicted defendants who 
would otherwise face significant prison time, an effort intended to 
sidestep drug laws widely seen as inflexible and overly punitive.

The Justice Department has tentatively embraced the new approach, 
allowing United States attorneys to reduce or even dismiss charges in 
some drug cases.

The effort follows decades of success for "drug courts" at the state 
level, which legal experts have long cited as a less expensive and 
more effective alternative to prison for dealing with many low-level 
repeat offenders.

But it is striking that the model is spreading at the federal level, 
where judges have increasingly pushed back against rules that 
restrict their ability to make their own determination of appropriate 
sentences.

So far, federal judges have instituted programs in California, 
Connecticut, Illinois, New Hampshire, New York, South Carolina, 
Virginia and Washington. About 400 defendants have been involved nationwide.

In Federal District Court in Brooklyn on Thursday, Judge John Gleeson 
issued an opinion praising the new approach as a way to address 
swelling prison costs and disproportionate sentences for drug trafficking.

"Presentence programs like ours and those in other districts mean 
that a growing number of courts are no longer reflexively sentencing 
federal defendants who do not belong in prison to the costly prison 
terms recommended by the sentencing guidelines," Judge Gleeson wrote.

The opinion came a year after Judge Gleeson, with the federal agency 
known as Pretrial Services, started a program that made achieving 
sobriety an incentive for drug-addicted defendants to avoid prison. 
The program had its first graduate this year: Emily Leitch, a 
Brooklyn woman with a long history of substance abuse who was 
arrested entering the country at Kennedy International Airport with 
over 13 kilograms of cocaine, about 30 pounds, in her luggage.

"I want to thank the federal government for giving me a chance," Ms. 
Leitch said. "I always wanted to stand up as a sober person."

The new approach is being prompted in part by the Obama 
administration, which previously supported legislation that scaled 
back sentences for crimes involving crack cocaine. The Justice 
Department has supported additional changes to the federal sentencing 
guidelines to permit the use of drug or mental health treatment as an 
alternative to incarceration for certain low-level offenders and 
changed its own policies to make those options more available.

"We recognize that imprisonment alone is not a complete strategy for 
reducing crime," James M. Cole, the deputy attorney general, said in 
a statement. "Drug courts, re-entry courts and other related programs 
along with enforcement are all part of the solution."

For nearly 30 years, the United States Sentencing Commission has 
established guidelines for sentencing, a role it was given in 1984 
after studies found that federal judges were giving defendants widely 
varying sentences for similar crimes. The commission's 
recommendations are approved by Congress, causing judges to bristle 
at what they consider interference with their judicial independence.

"When you impose a sentence that you believe is unjust, it is a very 
difficult thing to do," Stefan R. Underhill, a federal judge in 
Connecticut, said in an interview. "It feels wrong."

The development of drug courts may meet resistance from some 
Republicans in Congress.

"It is important that courts give deference to Congressional 
authority over sentencing," Representative F. James Sensenbrenner 
Jr., Republican of Wisconsin, a member and former chairman of the 
Judiciary Committee, said in a statement. He said sentencing should 
not depend "on what judge happens to decide the case or what judicial 
circuit the defendant happens to be in."

At the state level, pretrial drug courts have benefited from 
bipartisan support, with liberals supporting the programs as more 
focused on rehabilitation, and conservatives supporting them as a way 
to cut spending.

Under the model being used in state and federal courts, defendants 
must accept responsibility for their crimes and agree to receive drug 
treatment and other social services and attend regular meetings with 
judges who monitor their progress. In return for successful 
participation, they receive a reduced sentence or no jail time at 
all. If they fail, they are sent to prison.

The drug court option is not available to those facing more serious 
charges, like people accused of being high-level dealers or 
traffickers, or accused of a violent crime. (These programs differ 
from re-entry drug courts, which federal judges have long used to 
help offenders integrate into society after prison.)

In interviews, the federal judges who run the other programs pointed 
to a mix of reasons for their involvement.

Judge Ricardo S. Martinez ran a state drug court in Seattle before he 
was appointed to the federal bench. "People that have a serious 
addiction, you can put them in custody, but the minute you put them 
back in the community, they go back to the same thing and lo and 
behold you see them again," Judge Martinez said in an interview.

Some of the most pointed criticism of the status quo has come from 
Judge Gleeson, a former federal prosecutor. The drug court he helped 
set up is open to defendants who committed a range of nonviolent 
crimes, like fraud and selling prescription pills, and whose 
addictions fueled their actions.

In a 35-page opinion he issued this week, he criticized the Justice 
Department for charging defendants with drug offenses that carry 
mandatory minimum sentences, urged the Sentencing Commission to 
reduce the guideline range for many drug offenses and called for more 
programs that divert defendants from prison time.

The opinion chronicled the case of three graduates of the drug court, 
including Ms. Leitch, 29. The daughter of two addicted parents, she 
began smoking marijuana daily and later snorting cocaine at a young 
age, stealing to pay for her drug habit.

After a visit with her children to Guyana, where her father lives, 
she was paid over $30,000 to transport drugs back to the United 
States. Customs agents at Kennedy found the cocaine and charged her 
with importing and possessing the drug, which carried a three-year 
sentence under federal guidelines.

Though she showed up high at a court hearing, causing her to be 
jailed for a time, Magistrate Judge Steven M. Gold offered her a slot 
a year ago in the district's new drug court. She later took parenting 
courses, earned a general equivalency diploma and got a commercial 
bus driver's license - with government subsidies for some of those 
efforts. She now drives a bus in Nassau County.

Loretta E. Lynch, the United States attorney in Brooklyn, said she 
backed the program because drug courts elsewhere had lowered 
recidivism rates. "Our overall strategy of law enforcement and crime 
prevention isn't just incarceration," Ms. Lynch said.

At a sentencing hearing for Ms. Leitch last month, a prosecutor 
vacated her guilty plea and agreed to dismiss the charges if she did 
not use drugs or get arrested for 18 months. After the hearing, Judge 
Gleeson offered some encouraging words for the defendant, and then a hug.

"I don't know them as just the judge," Ms. Leitch said later. "People 
see judges as the bad guy. They get deeper. They get to know who you are."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom