Court of Last Resort : In These Chambers, a Different Kind of Conviction Can Help Drug Addicts Go Straight

Sheila Davis ran out of appealing choices last May.

She had just been arrested for the third time, speeding down a Ventura sidewalk on a bicycle, high on cocaine and three months pregnant. Because she was violating probation from one of her earlier drug charges, Davis was facing a nine-month jail sentence.

The prospect wouldn’t have bothered her, she said. Except for the baby. The baby made her think twice. If the baby was born while Davis was in custody and still addicted, she was afraid it would be taken away from her.

Enter drug court, a national courthouse trend that came to Ventura County last spring.

Drug court is a program that tries to address not just the criminal problems associated with drug addiction, but targets the health risks and looks for solutions. Drug court offers repeat under-the-influence offenders a chance to stay out of jail and kick their habit in exchange for a guilty plea, a signature on a five-page contract and a year’s worth of hard work.

Participants agree to a 30-day detox--usually in County Jail--and submit to twice-weekly drug tests to make sure they are staying clean. Probation officers drop in on them at random initially, then set up weekly meetings as their conditions improve. Participants must appear in court once a month for reviews and are expected to keep journals and attend 12-step programs several times a week.

Since the program began last April, Davis and about 80 other addicts have opted for drug court over jail.

Another 360 have applied and been rejected, some because court officials did not think they were ready for recovery, but many because financial constraints on the program limit the number of spaces available.

Davis considers herself one of the lucky ones. After a decade of using cocaine, she says she has now been clean for eight months, is enrolled in parenting classes and is looking forward to taking computer classes and putting her long-tangled life in order, all with the help of drug court.

“I’m really grateful for drug court,” she said. “That was the thing that saved my life.”

Drug court meets every Tuesday and Thursday morning in Department 23 of the Ventura County courthouse.

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There is a judge--Barry Klopfer--clad in a black robe. There is a deputy district attorney--Linda Esparza--and a public defender--Liana Johnson--sitting at a table facing the judge. But after that, traditions go out the window.

A bowl filled with granola bars sits on the lectern in front of the defendants, a breakfast offering from the court. Esparza and Johnson refer to themselves as members of a team. And legalese has been replaced with discussions ranging from drug test results and 12-step programs to family outings on the beach and relationships with boyfriends and girlfriends.

“It is a trip going to that courtroom,” Davis said. “Courtrooms, normally you go there and sit like a corpse. You are scared of opening up your mouth cause you don’t know what is going to happen. But at drug court, it’s like you are having a normal conversation.”

The courtroom conversation can be warm and encouraging if the participant is trying to stick with the program.

“You should feel proud of yourself,” public defender Liana Johnson tells one woman, a beaming 36- year-old meth addict who has just told the court how happy she is to be sober after 10 years of drug use. “You should go out and have an ice cream cone.”

But if the defendant makes excuses or dodges responsibility, the tenor of the conversation changes rapidly.

“You are a drug addict, you are going to die,” Klopfer booms at a new drug court participant who has just given a pitiful excuse for missing a probation hearing. “If you are going to jerk me around and play these games, I am not interested.”

Shell-shocked, the applicant retreats to his seat, promising not to miss any more appointments.

“I was very harsh with him,” Klopfer said later, sitting in his chambers with the other five members of the drug court team. “Welcome to the real world. If you are applying to drug court because you don’t feel like going to jail, forget it. Forget it right now.

“In order to be an addict for as long as these people have been, they are absolute experts at making excuses and shining things on,” he explained. “We’re not big on excuses here.”

About 20 people have decided to leave the program or been kicked out since it began last April. The chief reason is from succumbing to the temptations of drug use. Klopfer said the drug of choice for participants ranges from methamphetamines to cocaine and heroin. But most aren’t picky about which drug they do, relying instead on whatever they can get.

“If you can’t get the one you love, love the one you get,” Klopfer said.

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The heroin addicts have the hardest time kicking their habit, team members said. Last Tuesday, a 28-year-old woman with a prematurely lined and hardened face came in for her monthly review. She said she had been clean of heroin for months, but court officials were concerned about her. Her boyfriend, a drug court drop-out, seemed to be a bad influence.

Worried about the woman, probation officer Feleceia Williams-Brown told the judge she had been dropping by the woman’s home unexpectedly.

“Right now I think she’s ticked at me because I have been riding her pretty hard,” Williams-Brown said. “I’ve been showing up at her house a lot. But she’s still testing clean.”

The next day, Williams-Brown paid another visit to the woman and found her and her boyfriend coming down from a heroin-induced high. On Thursday, the judge lifted the stay on the boyfriend’s jail time, sending him off to spend about a year in the County Jail. The woman was given what Klopfer calls an attitude adjustment: two weeks in jail to dry out.

“We need to take a break from the way things have been going,” he told her. “We’ll have a new start and see where it takes us.”

Williams-Brown said separating the woman from her boyfriend may make a difference in her chances for recovery.

“She’s real salvageable,” she said.

Both addicts had cried when she caught them, she said. They apologized for letting her down. The addicts seem genuinely attached to both Williams-Brown and Joe Moore, the other probation officer assigned full time to drug court.

Since the program began last year, the drug court officials have grown to be a team, despite the fact that some, like the public defender and the deputy district attorney, are traditionally at odds with each other. With the shared goal of cleaning up addicts, those battle lines blur and a certain camaraderie emerges.

“They are all becoming public defenders,” Johnson jokes.

“Just as long as we don’t start dressing like them,” retorts Moore.

Esparza, the deputy district attorney, said she sometimes butts heads with the rest of the team, particularly with Johnson. She said she is more hesitant to welcome new cases, wary of being branded softhearted. But sometimes, she is surprised.

“There are people that I would never have thought would have succeeded that are doing great,” Esparza said.

Bob Holland, the representative from Ventura County Drug and Alcohol who helps steer the addicts into counseling and 12-step programs, said he too has been surprised by the success rate. He initially thought drug court might graduate only 10% of its participants, but now hopes that number will be closer to 50%.

“I think this has been the most rewarding thing I’ve been involved in,” Holland said.

The big problem confronting the team now is finding funding to keep it going. It took years to get the program off the ground and one friendly judge to agree to administer it. Each department donates the time and resources of the team members.

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Drug and Alcohol pays for the beds for inpatient treatment and detox. The Sheriff’s Department pays for the drug tests and jail space. It costs at least $400,000 to run the drug court with just 60 spaces. Team members are writing grant applications and say they would like to see the program expanded next year.

So would some of the participants.

“I would really like to see more funding go toward it,” said Margo, a 19-year-old Simi Valley woman who had been arrested six times for being under the influence of methamphetamines before she came to drug court last year. Sober, employed and happy, Margo credits drug court. “I wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for them,” she said.

“I walk in there and it is so uplifting,” she added, praising the court’s requirement of monthly reviews. “When I walk in there I’m not a criminal; I’m someone who is trying to make a better life.”