Study: UMD Professor, Three Others Examined Program's Progress In Its First Two Years The Duluth drug court appears to be accomplishing what it was designed to do, according to the first study of the 2-year-old program. The study, led by a University of Minnesota Duluth professor, was designed to determine whether the drug court is doing what it set out to do: increase public safety, reduce illicit drug use by nonviolent, drug-addicted offenders, restore participants to law-abiding productivity and lessen the financial effect on society. [continues 630 words]
COURTS: A jury finds that a police drug informant had a contract with Duluth, but that it hadn't been breached. The world of drugs is a sewer and Robert Jackley was a good swimmer in that sewer, Duluth Deputy City Attorney Alison Lutterman told a St. Louis County jury Thursday. Lutterman said Jackley made up his own rules while working as an effective drug informant for the Duluth Police Department and the Lake Superior Drug Task Force. He is educated, articulate and gifted at deceiving people, she said. [continues 782 words]
Rumors, angry gestures and crank phone calls ran Duane "Dewey'' Anderson and his wife, Dianne, out of Moose Lake, the couple testified in Duluth federal court this week. They said the harassment they received is linked to Dewey Anderson being suspended from his job as a Moose Lake school bus driver because of an insufficient drug test. Anderson, 57, was suspended because the School District said that he provided 15 fewer milliliters of urine than was required for a drug test -- an amount that would fill two soda straws -- and because he refused to take a second test. [continues 625 words]
When their remorse is genuine, it can be a pitiful sight. They wear orange jail jump suits, their hands are cuffed and their feet shackled. They are coming down from drug-induced highs. Or maybe they just look that way because they haven't slept while thinking about their problems. They're wasted. Now they're in the courtroom, standing before a judge and charged with a drug crime. If they've hit bottom, this might be the day they acknowledge they have a problem and seek help. [continues 1060 words]
Sixth Judicial District Judge Carol Person and other members of the criminal justice system will be meeting in the next few months to determine St. Louis County's drug court protocol. One of the issues they'll have to resolve is whether the drug defendant has to admit guilt to be accepted into the program. Hennepin County does not require the defendant to admit guilt, but the person has to commit to the drug court treatment as conditions of their pretrial release. [continues 395 words]
