JUDGE URGES EXPANSION OF DRUG COURT

TUSCALOOSA - Of all the criminal cases in Tuscaloosa County Circuit
Court last year, 1,135 were assigned to a jury trial.

But with jury trials scheduled for only 15 weeks out of the year,
there's only time and money to hold about two trials each of those
weeks, said Tuscaloosa County presiding Circuit Judge Scott Donaldson.

"That would take 56 years to try them all," he said.

About half of the cases involve drug offenses, he said, and more than
that have some relation to drugs.

"We have got to move these cases through the system in another way,"
Donaldson said at a meeting Monday to discuss expanding the county
drug court program.

Ideal -- but far from realistic -- solutions to the high case volume
would require the county to have more circuit judges or hold more
frequent jury trials, he said.

But a more immediate solution would be to expand the drug court
program.

Judges sentence some first-time offenders to drug court, as well as
others whom they feel could benefit from treatment and monitoring
program.

There are 164 people assigned to the program. Dan Boisot, director of
Tuscaloosa Community Corrections, said that his agency has the
resources to handle about 500 people.

Those assigned to drug court, which provides an alternative to
incarceration in most cases, spend an average of 14 to 16 months in
the program at an average of about four to five hours a week.

They participate in an outpatient treatment program, which varies in
intensity according to what they were charged with and how far they
have gotten into treatment, Boisot said.

"We need a drug court program with several hundred people in it in
order to get to the cases that involve violent offenders -- rapes,
murders, serious habitual offenders," Donaldson said.

He said the program needs to be expanded because Alabama Supreme
Court Justice Sue Bell Cobb has made it a priority to increase and
improve the programs in all Alabama counties.

Donaldson said that an Administrative Office of Courts study
indicated that Tuscaloosa is first in the state in the number of drug
cases, but also said that those numbers fluctuate. Another study
indicated that the Tuscaloosa circuit, the state's 6th Judicial
Circuit, is most in need of an additional judge.

The meeting held Monday included law enforcement members, attorneys
and community leaders. Donaldson said he will form a task force to
come up with ideas about how to expand the program.