JUDGE BLASTS DRUG COURTS

July 21, 2000 - Denver's drug court and drug courts around the nation came
under fire Thursday when a veteran Denver judge wrote in a law review
article that the courts are ineffective gimmicks meant to appease voters,
law enforcement and medical experts.

"The scandal of America's drug courts is that we have rushed headlong into
them - driven by politics . . .fuzzy headed notions about "restorative'
justice . . . and by the bureaucrats' universal fear of being the last on
the block to have the latest administrative gimmick," Denver District Judge
Morris Hoffman said in a North Carolina Law Review article released Thursday.

Though he never presided over the drug court, Hoffman was particularly
critical of Denver's drug court, claiming it was approved at a single
meeting of the Denver judges with the entire discussion lasting less than
30 minutes.

Drug courts typically let certain people charged with drug offenses avoid
jail time in exchange for their continuing, successful participation in a
treatment program.

Supporters say that is an effective way of reducing crowded court dockets
and getting drug users help.

But Hoffman, who began serving on the Denver bench in 1990, said drug
courts are just "the latest Band-Aid we have tried to apply over the deep
wound of our schizophrenia about drugs." He questions how drug use can be
punished when "our self-described experts have been telling us for so long
that addiction is a disease."

Hoffman, said the proponent of the Denver drug court, Judge William G.
Meyer, presented it as a "sort of a functional fait accompli."

"In this atmosphere it was understandably difficult for most of us to
analyze the proposal critically, for fear that any criticism would be
interpreted as a criticism of a very talented, hardworking, committed
colleague," Hoffman said.

Hoffman said there is no reliable data that drug courts work. Without such
proof, "we should consider abandoning the experiment," Hoffman said.

But Hoffman's contentions were challenged Thursday by Meyer; Adam Brickner,
recently named drug coordinator for the city of Denver; and Denver District
Attorney Bill Ritter.

Meyer, in particular, took exception to Hoffman's claim that the drug court
in Denver is not working. Meyer listed 10 ways the court has - in his
opinion - been successful.

Those include cutting case processing time, enabling those who need
treatment to be appropriately placed as quickly as possible; helping reduce
overcrowded dockets in the criminal courtrooms; and by allowing defendants
the opportunity to participate in treatment by placing them in a
less-restrictive setting.

Meyer said local drug court data for 1996 suggests that 81 percent of the
individuals sentenced stayed with treatment through the six month time
frame measured and that the drug court offenders spend less time
incarcerated, which saves the city and state between $1.8 and $2.5 million
annually.

A 1999 U.S. Justice Department sponsored study of a decade of drug court
cases concluded that recidivism among participants was between 5 and 28
percent, and less than 4 percent for graduates.

Ritter said he attributes Denver's declining crime rate, in part, to the
drug court.

"We've had this drug court now for seven years, and . . . in that
seven-year period we've also seen our crime rates nose-dive," the district
attorney said. "I think drug court plays an enormous role in that.

"That's the thing we've changed most significantly in the criminal justice
system," said Ritter. "We are putting 1,700 offenders a year through there.
The tight supervision of their treatment is different than anything done
prior to drug court."

Brickner, who will assume his new job as Denver's drug czar in mid-August,
and has worked as the drug court coordinator since 1998, said that Hoffman
got his statistics wrong. The drug court has done a very important job, he
said.

"Drug courts hold substance abusing offenders accountable for their
actions," Brickner said. "Drug court offenders are responsible for paying
for their own treatment and their own drug testing. So it does not, really,
cost the taxpayers more than what they were already paying for a district
court judge. There is some more staff, but most of it is grant funded."
Brickner said that national research shows that between 1986 and December
1999, 70 percent of drug court clients either graduate or are still active
in the program.

"I think that Judge Hoffman looked at some statistics incorrectly -
certainly the one where he said that 80 percent of our clients recidivate,"
Brickner said. "That wasn't true."