BUDGET WOES MAY END N.C. DRUG COURTS

CHARLOTTE - The state Administrative Office of the Courts has proposed
cutting financing for the state's drug treatment courts as it tries to trim
$11 million from its budget.

The courts operate in nine judicial districts, including New Hanover
County, and have been praised for helping reform repeat drug and alcohol
offenders. This year, the AOC spent $1.1 million of its $305 million budget
to finance them.

"We have the highest numbers this year since we started," said District
Court Judge Rebecca Blackmore of the New Hanover drug court, which started
in 1997.

"If we lose it, it will mean putting a lot of these people in jail. That's
going to end up being more costly for taxpayers."

Judge Blackmore said most of the state funding goes toward the court's
coordinator and treatment.

She said if the proposal goes through, the county would try to find federal
and local funds to support the court.

"It would be a tragedy to lose these courts, a real tragedy," said
Mecklenburg District Judge Phil Howerton, a recovering alcoholic who
started the first such court in Charlotte seven years ago without any state
money.

He has written Gov. Mike Easley, urging that money be restored.

Patty McQuillan, spokesman for the Administrative Office of the Courts in
Raleigh, said the court system's budget must be cut because of the state's
financial troubles.

"The current budget crisis is forcing the AOC to choose between cutting
programs or closing courts across the state," Ms. McQuillan said. "We've
got to maintain court services for the public even though the few programs
the court system has, such as the drug treatment program, have assisted in
turning lives around. But we can't close courts."

Sherrill Barnette, a former addict, graduated from the drug treatment court
program two years ago. "This program gave me a chance to get my life back,"
she said.

Ms. Barnette, 38, now executive assistant to the director of the drug court
program, praises Judge Howerton for helping her recover.

"He's a wonderful man," she said. "I owe him my life."

Drug courts began in Florida in the late 1980s to ease the burden on
criminal courts and to help addicts. There are now more than 750 drug
courts nationwide.

Mecklenburg's drug treatment court has drawn attention across the
Carolinas. In North Carolina, similar drug courts have been set up in
Catawba, Buncombe, Durham, Forsyth, New Hanover and Wake counties.

Donna Smithey, director of Catawba County's DWI treatment court, worries
what will happen to addicts and alcoholics served by the courts across the
state.

"It's very frightening," Ms. Smithey said. "We're dealing with people who
are addicts. Without these treatment courts, these people would be in
prison. I don't know what's going to happen to the people we're serving in
our court. That worries me."

In his letter to the governor, Judge Howerton wrote that studies show the
$1.1 million North Carolina spends on drug treatment courts has saved the
state $10 million a year in criminal justice system costs.

North Carolina is spending $2,000 to $2,500 a year on each person in the
drug treatment courts. It costs more than $20,000 a year to house an inmate
in a state prison.

In a recent study, the Administrative Office of the Courts followed drug
treatment court participants, both those who graduated and those who were
terminated from the program, for a year. Only 13 percent of Mecklenburg's
graduates were re-arrested, many on minor traffic and misdemeanor charges.

Statewide, 21 percent of the graduates were re-arrested. The re-arrest rate
for a similar group of offenders, who were addicted but did not go into the
treatment program, was 47 percent.

Staff Writer Millard K. Ives contributed to this report.