Pubdate: Fri, 26 Dec 2008 Source: Austin American-Statesman (TX) Copyright: 2008 Austin American-Statesman Contact: http://www.statesman.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/32 Author: Steven Kreytak Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?159 (Drug Courts) RETIRING DA ENGAGED COMMUNITY IN HIS JOB Adam Reavis says that if he had stayed in his native Houston, he would be dead now or locked up for life. Instead, after two trips to prison for theft and burglary Reavis came to Austin in the early 1990s and into the jurisdiction of Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle. Earle, who is retiring at the end of the month after 31 years in office, had just begun his latest in a series of programs designed to attack the causes of crime. When Reavis was arrested for attempting to steal speakers from a car near the City of Bee Cave in 1992, a panel of law enforcement officials convened under the program took a long look at his life. They recommended that instead of another prison term, he get probation and intensive treatment for his drug and alcohol addictions. Reavis said he sobered up and learned for the first time "that there was something else out there" besides stealing and using. Reavis' case illustrates the type of criminal justice system Earle has molded in Travis County since taking office in 1977: heavy on attempts at rehabilitation for nonviolent offenders, in part through new programs to combat the roots of crime. He has launched a host of programs over the years aimed at bringing regular people, police and others with a stake in criminal justice to the table to formulate new ways of meting out justice and built a national profile as a justice reformer in the process. Earle is perhaps best known as the prosecutor who pursued, often unsuccessfully, some of Texas' top politicians through his office's Public Integrity Unit. He has secured indictments against a Texas attorney general (Jim Mattox, in 1985), a U.S. senator (Kay Bailey Hutchison in 1993) and a U.S. House majority leader (Tom DeLay in 2005). A jury acquitted Mattox, and the case against Hutchison became a high-profile failure when charges were dismissed. A money laundering charge against DeLay remains pending. But closest to Earle's heart are his efforts at the forefront of community justice, a catchall name for programs that have caught on in prosecutors' offices nationwide in recent decades and aim to attack crime by, in Earle's words, "engaging the community in its own protection." Today, Earle's philosophy permeates the district attorney's office, which includes 80 lawyers. Veteran prosecutors say they are now trained to look for ways to make Austin safer outside the courthouse and to bring the community, especially victims of crime, into the legal process. Community leaders who for decades have been recruited by Earle's office to serve on crime prevention boards, to meet with offenders and for other programs say they see the district attorney as not only a prosecutor but also as a problem-solver. "What am I proudest of as I leave office?" Earle said. "I am proudest of making the community stronger." Although Earle and his assistants could not produce statistics to prove that his brand of justice has been a success, Earle pointed to Austin's crime rate as proof that it works. FBI statistics released earlier this year show that in 2007, Austin had the lowest violent crime rate among the state's five biggest cities, with 0.54 crimes per 100 people. Austin's property crime rate 6.34 crimes per 100 people was higher than Fort Worth's and Houston's but lower than Dallas' and San Antonio's. Earle also said that anecdotal stories of success show that what he does is working. Reavis has one of those stories, although whether he's a success or failure depends on who's judging. Reavis didn't stay out of trouble after getting probation and drug treatment 16 years ago he has been in and out of jail several times since. But today, Reavis, 41, is living free and working as a mechanic. He said he is sober and trying to be a good husband and supportive father to his 3-year-old and 18-year-old daughters. Every Wednesday, he reports on his sobriety at the county's drug court, another program started on Earle's watch. "I can guarantee you I wouldn't be where I am today if I hadn't moved to Austin," he said. "They are a little more lenient towards addiction u2026 and they do want to help." Lawyers and judges call Earle an innovator and say he was the perfect match for Austin, a place where juries have shown little appetite for sentencing low-level offenders to prison. Terry Keel, a prosecutor under Earle in the 1980s and 1990s who went on to become county sheriff, a state legislator and Texas House parliamentarian, said Earle struck a balance between innovative programs and being tough on crime. Keel said, for example, that Earle was one of the first in Texas to create a special unit for prosecuting child abuse crimes. "What he's most known for, and rightfully so, is he was willing to think outside the box," said Keel, a Republican. "Ronnie sees the role as more of a social worker than as a law enforcer." In the past decade and a half, Wilson Andrews, a bailiff in Travis County courts, has volunteered on a variety of Earle initiatives, including community crime prevention committees and at the Travis County state jail, helping reintegrate former offenders into the community. Andrews, 75, said Earle is "straight up." "In other words, he cares," he said. "That's the bottom line." Earle, 66, is married to Twila Hugley Earle, with whom he once taught a class on "community building" at the University of Texas. They have three grown children, including Travis County Court-at-Law Judge Elisabeth Earle. He grew up northeast of Fort Worth on a ranch near Birdville, now called Haltom City. He came to Austin when he was 19 and earned government and law degrees from the University of Texas. At 26, he became Texas' youngest judge when he was appointed associate judge in Austin's Municipal Court, In 1973, Earle won his first of two terms in the Texas House of Representatives, and three years later, he ran for district attorney and defeated then-County Attorney Ned Granger. Earle recalls that he started out as a tough-on-crime prosecutor but within a few years realized that, standing alone, that approach was flawed. Criminals would go off to prison and return to Austin as better criminals, he said. "To do the same thing over and over and wait for the same result is insanity," he said. In the 1980s, Earle was a leader of the emerging community justice movement, pushing alternative sentencing programs like jail boot camp and making restitution for victims a priority. "He was always out mixing with people," said Walter Timberlake, 78, a former politically active electrician union representative who served on a crime prevention board in his South Austin neighborhood that was put together by Earle. "Way back in the '50s and early '60s, a lot of times DAs didn't get out of the courthouse. Now ... you see all of them out mixing." Earle also has brought outside voices into perhaps the most important job of a prosecutor striking plea bargains. The program that considered Reavis' case, created in 1992, asked police, probation officers and jailer counselors to lend their expertise to help decide what defendants needed to get straight. Another program empaneled groups of community leaders, including parents and teachers, to punish nonviolent juvenile offenders. T.A. Vasquez, 56, has served on one of those committees, near Zavala Elementary in East Austin, for the past decade and said she uses the setting as a way to share with struggling families her experience in raising a sometimes troubled son. "I wished I had somebody or some thing that I could turn to for more support," Vasquez said. "There really isn't a book out there." Earle's experimentation has made him a big name in the justice reform world. Harvard University researchers have come to Austin to document his methods. He has spoken at seminars across the country on his efforts at "reweaving the fabric of community." When Jeremy Travis became director of the National Institute of Justice, the research arm of the U.S. Department of Justice, in the 1990s, he "came to learn that Ronnie Earle was one of the most thoughtful and creative people in the criminal justice arena in the entire nation." Earle has been criticized by some as being disengaged from what's happening in the trial courts where his prosecutors work because of his focus on community programs. Some trial court prosecutors say they rarely see him. But the most vehement criticism comes from political opponents who have called him an attack dog for the Democratic Party. In 1993, Earle secured an indictment of Hutchison on accusations that she used state resources in her previous office as state treasurer to run her senatorial campaign. Earle famously abandoned the charges on the eve of trial Hutchison was acquitted. Earle said he was forced to dismiss the charges because of the trial judge, who Earle believed had signaled that key evidence would not be admitted at trial. Without that evidence, Earle said, he would lose. Earle was ridiculed by many pundits and editorial writers. "There is now in legal circles a presumption he's incompetent, a political animal who really doesn't know the law," David Beckwith, a Hutchison adviser, told the American-Statesman in 2005 after the DeLay indictment. DeLay and his lawyers have made partisan claims against Earle part of their public defense. When Texas' highest criminal court upheld the dismissal of charges that DeLay and his associates conspired to violate election law, DeLay called Earle "the Mike Nifong of Texas," referring to the disbarred prosecutor who pursued rape charges against three Duke University lacrosse players. On a separate appeal, another appeals court earlier this year indicated that the remaining money laundering charge against DeLay may not survive a legal challenge. Earle has noted that in his career he has prosecuted cases against 15 elected officials 12 Democrats and three Republicans. The Democrats include Mattox, a Democrat whom Earle accused of threatening the bond business of a Houston law firm if it did not stop trying to interview Mattox's sister in connection with a lawsuit. In 1985 a Travis County jury acquitted Mattox, who died earlier this year. Earle said most of the politicians he targeted have accused him of political motives. "What else are they going to say?" he said. As he prepares to leave office Thursday, Earle, who has been mentioned as a possible candidate for governor in 2010, is coy about his future plans. "I am going to be doing some life preaching, but it ain't going to be the gospel," he said. Earle's decade-long top deputy, Rosemary Lehmberg, will replace him and vows to continue his work. "Community justice and Austin are kind of meant for each other," Earle said. "People here like each other. There's more of a spirit of community." He said that spirit has helped people like Reavis; Earle considers him a success story. Reavis said his life was up and down after he was first convicted in Austin in 1993 and put on probation and in drug treatment. New convictions for possessing drugs and driving drunk landed him in jail for stints as long as a year. But he said he also had streaks of sobriety, and started his own auto repair shop during an eight-year sober period. Earlier this year he was convicted of drug possession. He again was sentenced to treatment and probation. "He didn't hurt anybody, and ultimately you are talking about public safety," Earle said. "The bottom line is, how safe are we? "There was a time when everybody in the community was responsible for maintaining the peace," Earle said. "That's the role for the community; it's not the role for the cops or the DA. It's mobilizing the resources of the community." - --- MAP posted-by: Doug