DISTRICT ATTORNEYS ARGUE FOR POWER OVER WHICH CASES GO TO DRUG COURT

NEW ORLEANS -- District attorneys should be the gatekeepers of the state's
drug courts, district attorneys argued before the Louisiana Supreme Court.

Pete Adams, executive director of the Louisiana District Attorneys
Association, told the court Thursday that district judges in Orleans Parish
have wrongly circumvented district attorneys by deciding who should be
eligible for drug courts.

He said Orleans judges are putting people in danger by allowing too many
individuals arrested for drug offenses into drug courts, where offenders are
sent to treatment programs rather than jails.

The justices took the arguments under consideration and gave no indication
when they might rule.

The state and the Orleans Parish District Attorney's Office are appealing
three cases in which Orleans judges, without the consent of the District
Attorney's Office, decided to send drug offenders to drug courts.

Adams said that district attorneys are not opposed to the courts but that
prosecutors are the only ones who know which offenders would benefit from
rehabilitation and which ones would abuse it.

Jason Williams, representing one of the drug offenders, argued that, if only
district attorneys decide who is eligible for drug courts, far fewer drug
offenders would be sent to rehabilitation programs, undermining the intent
of the law.

"If they get their way in Orleans Parish, and they're consistent, then no
one filling the drug court criteria would be recommended to the drug
courts," Williams said.

Drug courts were set up by the Legislature as a way for drug and alcohol
addicts to get treatment for their addictions and avoid jail time.

The program does not accept drug dealers, sex offenders or people convicted
of violent offenses.

After pleading guilty and getting a two-to-five-year suspended sentence,
convicts must fulfill a long list of responsibilities to stay in drug court.

Drug courts were designed to team up judges, counselors, parole officers,
public defenders and prosecutors to treat drug offenders rather than jail
them.