CIRCUIT JUDGE BEGINS DRUG COURT TO HELP ADDICTS

GREENVILLE -- Circuit Judge David Jernigan greeted the first five
participants in the new Muhlenberg Drug Court with kind, but firm, words
Friday afternoon.

"We're not your enemy," the judge told the woman and four men standing
before him in the third-floor Circuit Courtroom of the Muhlenberg County
Courthouse. "We want you to do well; we don't want you behind bars."

But that is where they will go if they use alcohol and illegal drugs or
disobey the terms of probation during the one to two years of the Drug
Court program.

If that happens, "you will flunk and you will go back to jail and serve out
your time," Jernigan said during the 30-minute inaugural session.

Jernigan knows that people in the program, which tries to rehabilitate
people with addictions and reduce the number of repeat offenders, "are more
likely to violate probation than non-addicts.

"What we're doing is just spending . . . extra time with these
individuals," he said.

With the drug court, "you don't see same faces in court over and over
again," said Marianne Darity, the court's volunteer coordinator.

Other Drug Court team members include Jernigan, Sheriff Jerry Mayhugh,
probation/parole officer Tommy Fauntleroy, Commonwealth's Attorney Ralph
Vick, public defender Paul Allen and Bruce Penrod with the Pennyroyal
Mental Health Center in Greenville.

Jernigan ordered all five people to find a job if they don't already have
one; to enroll in General Education Diploma (GED) classes if they don't
have a high school education; and to work toward a stable living environment.

"This Drug Court team felt it was important that you attend AA or NA
meetings," Jernigan said in ordering them to attend at least drug three
meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous next week.

Team members will meet every Friday morning to review each case and make
sure the five keep all appointments and counseling sessions, he warned.

"You will be sanctioned for each violation," Jernigan said. Possible
punishments range from community service to added counseling and drug
screens to jail time, he said.

The judge also ordered them to bring with them to next week's session a
one-to two-page report telling him of their history of drug use and a list
of drugs to which they think they are addicted.

All five have said they are addicted to, or have tried, methamphetamine and
marijuana, Darity said.

Of the three who said they were hooked on meth, "every one of them told me
they were hooked the first time they tried it," Darity said.

It was a rise in meth cases in particular, and drug-related criminal cases
in general, that prompted Jernigan to join the Drug Court program in mid-2000.

"I decided there had to be an alternative to the way we are doing things,"
he said. "We just have a lot of meth addicts."

Jernigan's analysis of 1999 and 2000 cases showed that of the 431
indictments returned by local grand juries, 312, or 72 percent, included at
least one drug charge.

That did not include the countless other charges -- robbery, burglary,
thefts, cold checks -- that are often committed to help feed an addiction,
he said.

Drug Court team members received training last year in Louisiana, New York
City and Louisville in sessions sponsored by the U.S. Department of Justice.

The court is open to those with a felony drug conviction who have no
history of violence and no sex offenses or drug-trafficking convictions.
Vick initially recommends possible participants, who then are interviewed
by the Drug Court team.

The first phase lasts eight weeks, followed by a 16-week second phase in
which the number of counseling appointments and court dates are reduced,
Jernigan told the five participants. Those obligations are further reduced
during the 24-week third phase, he said.