Pubdate: Sun, 03 Mar 2002
Source: Commercial Appeal (TN)
Copyright: 2002 The Commercial Appeal
Contact:  http://www.gomemphis.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/95
Author: Mickie Anderson
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?159 (Drug Courts)

FOR ADDICTS, DRUG COURT CAN BE PATH TO CLEAN LIFE

As Lucreasie Moore vowed through happy tears to be a faithful wife, 
deputies in the background patted down five drug suspects. The scene 
couldn't have been more perfect.

Moore, 43, was married in Shelby County Drug Court by Judge Tim Dwyer. She 
credits the judge and the court with saving her.

Among the criminal justice system's most successful ventures, drug court 
aims to keep addicts and abusers sober and out of jail.

A former crack addict, Moore was praying to get clean when she was arrested 
on a shoplifting charge.

Given the option of going through the regular justice system or the 
county's drug court, she chose the latter.

"I was just a bag lady, staying in empty, empty houses and just . . . out 
there," she said.

Hopscotching from smoking marijuana to lacing it with cocaine to snorting 
cocaine and later smoking crack, her drug use slowly accelerated from 
casual to pervasive.

Moore was so frail when she got to court, a strong breeze would've tumbled 
her like a dry leaf. Drug use dulled her eyes and skin. Her left hand was 
scarred by an addled attempt to start a fire with gasoline.

She pried boards off abandoned houses, tricked the power company into 
providing electricity she'd never pay for and moved in.

She took things from those houses, wrestling large appliances - a 
refrigerator, once - into trash bins to roll to buyers she'd roust at all 
hours.

"I used to get out and go in garbage cans, and get food out, and go and 
sell to people. And go to the Goodwill boxes and get stuff and sell to 
people," she said. "I was just a hustler."

The road from hustler to law-abiding, newly married grandmother went 
through drug court.

Dwyer has run the court since its 1997 inception. It went full time in 2000.

Exploding drug use in the 1980s sped creation of drug courts around the 
country in the last decade.

The local court, which costs $750,000 a year for 300 offenders, runs on 
government grants and drug seizure money.

The $2,500 to treat each offender is high but cheaper than jail, officials say.

Officials trying to solve problems with the county's downtown jail say 
expanding drug court would help.

A prosecutor, public defender and counselors complete the court's staff, 
track ing hundreds of nonviolent offenders who hope to kick their habit in 
return for a clean record.

So far, 323 have graduated.

A 2000 study by the University of Memphis showed the court was diverting 
first-time offenders from jail and reducing rearrests.

A new study that compares drug-court graduate recidivism to a random sample 
of people with similar charges is almost done, criminology professor 
Richard Janikowski said.

During the yearlong program, defendants go through therapy and 12-step 
meetings.

If they lack a G.E.D., they must get one, stay out of trouble, find work 
and, above all, pass frequent drug screens.

Any slip likely results in one of prosecutor Bryan Davis's famous lectures 
in "the booth," a row of chairs near the judge's bench where defendants sit 
and explain their lapse.

If the mistake is unforgivable, it's where they await an escort to jail. 
Davis, a 43-year-old Harvard graduate, is perhaps the most skeptical in a 
courtroom where everyone's heard it all before.

He thunders at weak excuses that offend him.

"You know I'm trying to help you, but I don't like liars," he fusses at one 
college-age woman with suspicious drug-screen results.

"Pull them pants up, man," he tells a young man sidling into court with 
impossibly low jeans.

He turns back to the woman: "Don't be making no deals with me. I'm the last 
person in this court you want to be making deals with."

Despite his demeanor, Davis - like the staff - pulls for clients to make it.

"It's one of the few times in government where you're trying to help people 
first and punish them second," he said.

Staff members face inevitable disappointment, like when a promising 
candidate slips - sometimes on graduation day.

Some will make it. Some won't.

A year of sobriety isn't easy for those who've spent years relying on drugs 
and alcohol.

Last week, Izeal Jones celebrated 21 months sober.

A heavy marijuana habit landed the 21-year-old a possession charge.

After a few unhappy months, it dawned on him that clarity wasn't so bad. 
Then his year was extended four months by an unexpected driving charge.

So last week, when Jones got his diploma and did the special drug court 
handshake with the judge, he couldn't stop grinning.

But Lucreasie Moore knows she, Jones and the other graduates will never 
shake temptation.

Two years sober, she's seen more than one friend fall.

"But you know what I say? I don't wish that on nobody, God knows I don't," 
she said. "But it's better them than me."

Most mornings, a pang reminds her of the old friend who won't leave.

"Your disease, it talks to you through your stomach first," she said. "I 
say, 'Lord, here it is, take it away.' "

"I ain't going back."
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MAP posted-by: Beth