Law, Health Officials Seek to Establish Drug Court : Justice: The focus would be on rehabilitating nonviolent offenders through treatment, testing. Failure would mean jail.

Miami has one. Oakland and Portland, Ore., do too. And now Orange County’s law enforcement and health care officials are eagerly pursuing the county’s first drug court, which would mark a dramatic shift in the way the criminal justice system handles nonviolent drug addicts.

The drug court would focus on rehabilitation--not punishment--and would funnel first-time and repeat drug offenders through a rigorous, months-long program of drug treatment and testing. Failure would mean jail or prison, while graduates would escape conviction.

The goal: breaking the vicious cycle of addiction.

“This is not legalization of drugs,” said Orange County Superior Court Judge David T. McEachen, who is spearheading the effort to make drug court a reality. “We are taking the exact opposite approach. Rather than just putting people in jail, we’re going to give a certain target group a chance . . . to achieve total abstinence.”

McEachen said he recently visited drug courts in Oakland and Oregon and came away impressed with the possibilities: reducing crime, cutting court costs and freeing jail space and other resources for violent criminals.

Orange County’s drug court is still in the formative stages, but authorities hope to pay for part of the program with grants obtained through the federal crime bill that was passed by Congress last week.

The local program would be modeled after other drug courts nationwide.

Typically, one judge and courtroom staff are designated as the drug court, and eligible defendants are referred there from other courtrooms. The judge is responsible for overseeing the program, and the defendants make frequent court appearances--in some cases once a week--to report their progress.

A pilot program could begin locally in early 1995, with at most a few hundred participants, court officials say.

Superior Court Executive Officer Alan Slater said it is too soon to say who might be eligible, but everyone agrees that violent criminals need not apply. Prosecutors estimate that 3,000 to 5,000 people were charged in Orange County last year with possessing drugs such as cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine.

“I think it’s a model whose time has come,” said Slater, who joined county judges, health officials and others at a daylong symposium Friday in Dana Point to hear about drug court programs nationwide. “I think a judge said it best: ‘This is a better mousetrap.’ ”

The program would involve nearly every facet of law enforcement and county government. Many involved say they are proceeding carefully to make sure the program is a success--and not a way for drug addicts to take advantage of the legal system.

Assistant Dist. Atty. Brent Romney said his office won’t back the program until he is assured that public safety remains a No. 1 priority. He said the program should admit only addicts who meet specific criteria and are likely to benefit from treatment and rehabilitation.

“From our point of view, if the person is an addict and the person really wants help and we have a program in place, we probably would be very much in support of that,” said Romney, director of the district attorney’s municipal court operations. “I think everyone is in agreement. If you can rehabilitate them, it’s worth it.”

Chief Deputy Public Defender Carl C. Holmes said he believes a drug court could reduce crime.

“The system is not working and we have to find other solutions to save us from the effects of drug use,” Holmes said. “There is really no question that drug use leads to crime. Drug users support their habits with their crimes.”

Holmes said the program is a win-win situation for the judicial system. If a defendant successfully completes the program and remains drug free, he or she avoids a conviction and the program saves money that otherwise would be spent for jails, courts, attorneys and cops. If the defendant fails, he or she still faces the original criminal charges.

Some have likened it to giving drug addicts a long rope: They can either hang themselves or hoist themselves to drug-free living.

Holmes said a drug court might not be wildly popular in conservative Orange County. “But we owe it to ourselves, no matter what our political views, to fight this problem in the most effective way possible.”

There are about 30 drug courts nationwide, and more than 100 are being established. The first started in Miami in the late 1980s.

McEachen said the idea for an Orange County drug court was sparked in May when he and Presiding Superior Court Judge James L. Smith heard a presentation on such courts at a judicial conference.

“We looked at each other and said, ‘This is for us,’ ” McEachen recalled.

Orange County judges have since been holding meetings with officials from various county agencies, including prosecutors, defenders, police, probation and health care workers.

Smith said the program appears to be a way to keep people from abusing drugs and coming back to court “time after time” while saving taxpayers money. Smith has long been a supporter of alternative methods of fighting drugs, and caused a flap when he endorsed decriminalizing drugs as a way to gut the profit motive of dealers.

More than 50 people gathered in Smith’s courtroom Thursday to hear more about the concept from experts, including Alameda County Municipal Court Judge Jeffrey S. Tauber, who helped start the nation’s second drug court.

The strength of the drug court, Tauber told the group, is in linking all the various agencies and services to create a circle that prevents people from falling through the cracks in the system.

In the Portland metropolitan area, court officials started a drug court program in August, 1991, after surveys showed that up to 75% of all people booked on felony charges tested positive for drugs.

“Drugs were eating us alive,” Multnomah County Dist. Atty. Mike Schrunk said at Thursday’s meeting.

Between August, 1991, and June, 1994, Portland officials diverted about 1,730 cases into the drug court, with about a third of those offenders graduating from the intensive 12-month program. Schrunk said the program has saved more than $1 million through reductions in probation, law enforcement and defense costs.

Some success, like the 18 drug-free babies born to program participants, has been easy to measure, Schrunk said, while other aspects are more difficult to gauge.

But Schrunk said he knows one thing for sure: “It’s been more successful than what we were doing.”