$1.2 MILLION GRANT BOLSTERS FAMILY DRUG COURT

The 32-year-old mother of two was so addicted to drugs that Kentucky's
Child Protective Services had taken her two sons away.

''I didn't know how to be a parent,'' the woman said.

Thanks to a pilot Jefferson County Family Drug Court program, which
combines counseling, parenting classes, and drug and alcohol treatment, the
woman, identified only as Angela, was reunited this summer with her boys,
ages 7 and 10.

''It taught me to grow up and the value of life,'' she said yesterday. ''I
have good friends, including two judges.''

Those judges -- District Court's Henry Weber and Family Court's Eleanore
Garber -- together with County Attorney Irv Maze, yesterday announced a
$1.2 million federal grant that will allow the drug court program --
Kentucky's first -- to become fully operational.

During a briefing yesterday in the Judicial Center, Kentucky Supreme Court
Chief Justice Joseph E. Lambert also announced that starting in January,
all custody, visitation and divorce matters in Jefferson and the other 25
counties with family courts will be handled by elected judges -- rather
than domestic relations commissioners.

To handle the extra workload in Jefferson, Family Court will get another
judge, its 10th, Lambert said, and a retired judge will return to work
about half time.

Family Drug Court

Jefferson County will get $400,000 annually for three years -- 10 percent
of the more than $10 million that the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services is dividing nationally among 28 drug-treatment courts.

Seven women have gone through Jefferson County's pilot Family Drug Court
program, and two have been reunited with their children, which is the goal,
Weber said.

The program is a spinoff of the county's Drug Courts, which Weber launched
in 1993 and which the National Association of Drug Court Professionals
earlier this year honored as a national model for its success in
rehabilitating substance abusers and finding alternatives to prison.

With the threat of jail hanging over them and encouragement of judges and
other professionals, nonviolent drug offenders spend at least one year
undergoing drug testing, counseling, therapy and job training. Nearly 300
drug abusers had graduated from the program -- and had their charges
dropped -- when it was recognized in February.

Family Drug Court is part of Family Court. But even if the constitutional
amendment on the Nov. 5 ballot to preserve and extend Family Court fails,
the pilot Family Drug Court program would continue and the federal grant
would not be endangered, Weber said.

The grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration
will allow Family Drug Court to hire two clinicians and a case worker, and
to pay for transportation and child-care costs.

Angela, who spoke at the news conference, said she has been drug-free for
14 months and talks with her family for the first time in three years.

Domestic relations

In Kentucky, some domestic cases have been handled by divorce relations
commissioners -- a group of part-time, volunteer attorneys.

The General Assembly voted this year to do away with commissioners in
counties with Family Courts because of concerns that some of the most
important decisions in the lives of litigants were being made by nonelected
lawyers.

That was especially true outside Jefferson County, where commissioners have
been allowed to rule on the division of marital assets and permanent
custody of children. A commissioner's recommendation to a judge could be
appealed, but the party has had to pay for a transcript and for his or her
lawyer to argue the case again.

In Jefferson County, by local rule, commissioners have been limited to
making preliminary decisions on temporary support and maintenance, and
hearing post-divorce motions on changes in child support and termination of
maintenance.

Lambert praised the work of commissioners in the county but said their
elimination will bring Family Court closer to its ideal of matching each
family with one judge, who hears all their issues.

Family Court handles some matters previously heard in Circuit Court, such
as divorce, child custody, support, visitation, alimony, adoption and
termination of parental rights, and some cases from District Court, such as
domestic-violence and emergencyprotective orders, child abuse and neglect,
and juvenile-status offenses such as truancy.

But the matter could be moot unless voters on Nov. 5 approve the Family
Court constitutional amendment. Lambert, who has campaigned statewide for
the amendment, has said he would dismantle the programs across the state
unless the statute is approved.

The Kentucky Supreme Court in 1994 held that Family Court was
constitutional -- but only because it was set up on a temporary basis.
Jefferson County adopted the state's first Family Court in 1991 when
then-Chief Justice Robert Stephens appointed several district and circuit
judges to it.

Lambert said yesterday that to pick up the additional workload from the
commissioners, District Judge Kathleen Voor Montano will move to Family
Court next month and retired Family Court Judge Mary Corey will return to
work 120 hours a year.

Jefferson County's five divorce relations commissioners work part-time on
contracts that provide a starting pay of $175 a day.

''We don't do it for the money, we do it because we love the work,'' said
David J. Thompson Jr., who has served as a commissioner for nearly five years.

Thompson agrees that commissioners ''dilute the Family Court ideal.'' But
he said he doesn't think the addition of 1 1/2 judges will be enough to
cover the extra workload for Family Court judges, who also have to hear
cases on domestic-violence orders, dependency and neglect of children, and
contested paternity.

Family Court Judge Patty Walker FitzGerald said the changes may speed up
divorce litigation.

''It may give us a chance to resolve cases a little sooner because a lot of
times, the preliminary motions heard now by commissioners are the same
matters you hear at trial,'' she said.