A JUDICIAL OUTBURST

Judge D. Michael "Mickey" Foellger's outburst last week, while not what we
normally expect of judicial decorum, is understandable.

Who wouldn't be frustrated?

The Campbell County district judge was upset with a drug case that
authorities were trying to make.

The case turned on accusations that a man with known drug problems had
gotten two dentists to prescribe painkillers for him. Painkillers are a
widely abused drug.

But there were a couple of twists in this case.

First, the accused man was a jail inmate at the time of the offense.
Allowed to leave jail for work, the man had been given permission to go a
dentist at University Hospital in Cincinnati where he got a prescription
for painkillers. But the next day, the man went to a second dentist where
he got a tooth pulled and a second prescription for painkillers. And that
dentist visit was without the jail's permission.

It's important to note that once the man got the prescriptions filled he
turned over the drugs to the jailer, as is jail policy. There was no
attempt to hide the drugs or sell them.

The crime he was charged with was obtaining a controlled substance by
withholding information from a practitioner - in other words, not telling
the second dentist he already had one painkiller prescription. That's a
felony. And obviously it's a way for a drug user to be able to double up on
his drug use.

Did the jail inmate have that in mind? We don't know. But he did have a
toothache. In fact, he had a tooth pulled.

Now here's the other twist:

The case was made by the Northern Kentucky Drug Strike Force.

And that's what justifiably ticked off Foellger.

The judge couldn't believe a special narcotics unit would spend time, as he
said, "snooping around the people who go to the dentist twice."

He dismissed the case, complaining, ". . . we've got to have better things
to do with taxpayers' money."

With drug trafficking plaguing areas of Northern Kentucky, like Covington's
Eastside, and drugs moving up and down the freeways and through the
airport, it's a valid criticism.

The Northern Kentucky Drug Strike Force is a strike force that has dwindled
in membership (only the Boone, Campbell and Kenton county police are
involved in it now), struggled with funding, and suffered turnover at the
top. The fact is it really doesn't deserve the distinction of a strike
force if it can't find cases any bigger than this one.

But the judge is not faultless in this case. While Foellger was justified
in his criticism, he may have missed a chance to help a defendant who stood
before him in another way - to help him with a drug problem. Maybe the man
needed to be guided again into a treatment program. Justice is not just
about cases but about people.