When President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore announced a new national drug strategy last week, the setting was plush, the mood confident.
In an auditorium adjacent to the White House, with cushy theater-style seats and red, white and blue backdrop perfect for a “photo op,” they hailed a decline in drug use and promoted a plan that includes a $175 million ad campaign to turn youth toward a more righteous path.
The dutiful stenographers who make up much of the press corps scribbled away.
As they did, three teenagers lingered outside a courtroom several subway stops, but really light years, away from Clinton, Gore, their drug czar and dutiful scribblers.
“I was caught with a gun and a rock of coke,” said one. “Then I forgot to come here yesterday and got caught with another rock of coke. If I —- up this time, they’re going to lock me up.”
“Be careful,” said a second. “I was over at the D.C. (District of Columbia) Jail for five months.”
“I was in court before on a misdemeanor-coke,” said the third.
It’s a commentary on urban disarray that the same kids who have trouble reading may recite legalese–“misdemeanor-coke”–as routinely as Alan Dershowitz.
It’s part of the rite of passage that brings them to Room 202 at the district’s Superior Court. It’s drug court for a crime-ridden capital and is overseen by a well-intentioned judge experimenting with a carrot-and-stick approach in the hope of somehow correcting a big mess.
I tried to prod Jose Lopez, who might be tagged the “Drug Judge,” into opining on Clinton’s latest strategy or the heated matter of whether the U.S. should certify a corrupt Mexican government as a U.S. ally in the “war” on drugs (which it did Friday). He wouldn’t bite.
“I keep away from all that political stuff,” Lopez said.
Indeed, here in Room 202, he’s consumed not by geopolitics but a street-level reality not evident during Clinton’s drug-and-pony show at the Old Executive Office Building. There are no bright-eyed suburban kids, like the carefully selected 8th grader, Nathan Habel, who introduced Clinton when the strategy was announced.
“I got cocaine, marijuana and PCP in my system. So if you take my urine, you’ll think I’m still smoking,” a young defendant tells Lopez, claiming he has been clean for a few days.
More Top Picks Markers Plant
He’s short of persuasive.
What is most notable is that Lopez has left the bench and is sitting, legs crossed, in the juror-less jury box with four defendants trying the drug treatment program.
He refers to a status call that morning, attended by the four youths, at which Lopez was tough on another defendant. “When I saw his record, I said, `I can’t trust you. Your actions tell me I can’t trust you.’ “
So he sent him to jail. The stick.
“I don’t want to put nobody in jail,” said Lopez, employing a double negative understood by his small audience. “But I can hit you with 30 years. So don’t come back with excuses.”
“You know, when we take drugs, it makes us geniuses with excuses. Once you start giving excuses, you get lost.”
Lopez, 48, a predawn jogger who resembles a lightweight boxer, was born in the Dominican Republic and grew up in Brooklyn. He recalls the occasional heroin junkie and others smoking airplane glue. His folks were poor and had scant education.
Talking to defendants on the drug treatment program, he swears, “I am no different than you guys. Brooklyn wasn’t an easy place.”
He’s convincing as he lays out the urban realpolitik. “If for the last 20 years, you’ve been doing drugs, you’re not enjoying life. The little money you get, you use on drugs. You’re always on the lookout, to protect yourself. So you’re always carrying a piece (gun).”
Those before him are evidence why the District of Columbia has not enjoyed the same decline in violent crime as has most of the nation. Drugs remain rampant, with roughly 40 percent of felonies in recent years directly tied to drugs. The legal system is overwhelmed.
With federal grants, the city tried different ideas starting in 1994. It used three courts, and separate approaches, for drug cases to discern whether any would alter woeful recidivism rates.
One was business as usual, namely the old way without a treatment component. It served as the “control” group for the study. The second focused heavily on sanctions. The third focused on drug treatment as an alternative.
But along the way, the City Council ditched stiff mandatory minimum sentences for drug use, in part because members believed they were unduly punitive toward young blacks.
As a result, prosecutors lost leverage and had trouble getting defendants to plead. Many defendants opted for trials (juries here tend to be more sympathetic than in, say, Salt Lake City). Perhaps a cop wouldn’t show up for some reason, or something else would get the accused off the hook.
Still, there was enough evidence of lower recidivism among those who tried drug treatment to forge on. Thus, as of Jan. 1 they’re trying to meld the three approaches in Lopez’s court and offer certain defendants a chance at treatment before they get hammered with a stiff sentence and fill up the jails.
Those eligible have been charged with the felony of distribution of drugs or possession with the intent to distribute and tested positive for drugs upon their arrests. In addition, they must have no previous violent felony convictions or weapons charges.
Generally, they enter a plea of not guilty and can enter a drug abuse program. It can last six months and include counseling, advice on getting a job and related medical treatment.
If all goes well, they show up before Lopez every 30 days. They submit to regular drug tests and, if they test positive, are hauled into court the next day and possibly sanctioned. If they stay clean, there’s the prospect, for example, of pleading guilty but getting probation.
When I resurfaced the day after Clinton’s announcement, Lopez was less cuddly toward one defendant who pleaded guilty to possession with intent to distribute 21 Ziploc bags of cocaine from his beige Mazda. The government had dropped a sterner charge of cocaine distribution, figuring the defendant would proceed into the treatment program.
For reasons that baffled Lopez, the man’s attorney said no. “You want to take your chances with me?” Lopez said ominously. The lawyer asked to approach the bench.
“No,” Lopez snapped, setting the next court date and intimating that time in jail beckoned.
During a break, he beckoned me to a private room and assured, “I’ll give people a stiff sentence at a drop of a nickel. Hit them with a 5- to 15-(year) sentence like that.”
For sure. Yet, I wondered whether this was a good fellow with an impossible task.
“I hope this works,” he said, moments before returning to his courtroom. “If not we just have to build more jails.”
Cokie Watch
Let’s see, now. ABC News has long led the pack in paid moonlighting and related conflicts of interest.
Then one learns that Barbara Walters did a puff profile of Andrew Lloyd Webber without disclosing that she had invested $100,000 in his “Sunset Boulevard.” No discipline against her.
More Top Picks Pliers Set
Last week came news that Richard Kaplan, while running ABC’s “World News Tonight” with Peter Jennings, slept in the Lincoln Bedroom as the guest of his chum, the president.
He has other duties these days. But it was fitting that ABC was the one network whose evening newscast Tuesday didn’t open with disclosures of Clinton’s central role in myriad White House sleepovers. It opted for something on consumer credit-card debt. When it got to the Motel Pennsylvania tale, no mention of Kaplan.
Earth to ABC: The Tribune immediately noted (on page 1) that its Ann Landers was a Clinton guest. It must be the self-righteousness of a moth-eaten newspaper, eh?