STUDENTS GET EYE-OPENER IN KANE DRUG COURT

ST. CHARLES TOWNSHIP -- In Sue Sullivan's health class, she teaches
students about the harmful effects of alcohol, tobacco and illicit
drugs.

But instead of just telling the children how drugs can ruin a life,
Sullivan took that lesson a step further Friday, taking half of the
Central Middle School seventh-graders to the Kane County Drug Court.

The students were able not only to hear as dozens of drug offenders
appeared before the judge, but also to see how drugs hurt individual
lives.

The second half of the class will visit later this
month.

"I thought, 'Why would they do that? They keep coming back again and
again. That isn't how I'd want to spend some of my days,'a=80%" said
12-year-old Rachel Rodewald, one of the 67 pupils who sat through
about an hour of drug court cases Friday morning. "Seeing people come
out of the jail -- I just really never want to be like that."

That's exactly the lesson 16th Judicial Circuit Court Judge Bill Weir
hoped the children would hear. He, as well as prosecutors and defense
attorneys, gave the students a short tutorial on what happens at drug
court before moving on to the morning docket.

"What this court attempts, through treatment and intensive probation,
is to break the addiction," Weir said, adding that most of those in
his courtroom were arrested on cocaine or marijuana possession charges.

Team approach in court

Defense and prosecuting attorneys said they work as a team to help
those with drug problems stay clean and sober. "My role in the court
is to help people get through the court system," said Public Defender
Melynda Benjamin. "The defense attorney does not get you out of
trouble. We are not here to make it go away but to help you be treated
fairly. There are consequences when you do something against the law."

There were 129 drug court defendants on the docket Friday -- one of
the two days each week Weir hears drug court cases. Some defendants
were in the Kane County Jail and were brought in in handcuffs. Others
were charged recently with drug possession. Still others had new drug
charges against them while going through the drug court process.

Weir had to be hard on a few people. One young woman hadn't brought
the paperwork with her to prove she'd been showing up for her drug
testing. The next time she forgets her paperwork, Weir said, she may
have to spend time in jail.

Another man had missed one of his court appearances
recently.

"Do you have a refrigerator? Put your court date on your refrigerator
door," Weir told the man. Or, he suggested, the man could write the
date in soap on his car windshield.

"We miss you when you are not here," Weir said. "Your next court date
is Dec. 20. That's five days before Christmas -- five shopping days
before Christmas."

If the man doesn't make that next court date, a warrant will be issued
for his arrest, Weir said.

The students sat quietly through the morning call. But back out in the
hallway at the Kane County Judicial Center, they began talking about
what they'd seen and heard in the courtroom.

"I was surprised that there were a lot of young people, and a lot of
different ages. People came out in handcuffs," said 12-year-old Ryan
Minehart. "Your parents would find out, and you'd get in a lot of trouble."

In her classroom next week, Sullivan said, she'll have each student
take on the "role" of a drug court defendant and talk about how it
would feel to get in trouble with drugs, to be in front of a judge,
and how each would feel about the sentence handed down.

"We want them to not want to ever be there again," Sullivan said.