AG Touts Benefits Of Incarcerating Drug Offenders To Help End Cycle Of Addiction

IL for www.theinndianalawyer.com

Indiana’s attorney general is advocating the benefits of incarcerating drug addicts, saying chemical addiction programs that target inmate populations are among the best methods of helping drug users on the road to recovery.

Specifically, Attorney General Curtis Hill pointed to the success of the Jail Chemical Addictions Program, which recently made a presentation to the Attorney General’s Public Safety Coalition, a group tasked with “finding constructive solutions to the state’s crime and drug problems.”

According to participants in the Dearborn County Jail Chemical Addictions Program, being arrested and sentenced to incarceration helped save their lives.

“Everyone recognizes the need for more treatment facilities, but it would be unwise to expect addicts to just line up and ask for help,” Hill said in a statement Friday. “The nature of addiction will not allow such rational behavior.”

Instead, incarceration “plays a vital role in helping addicts recognize their need for intervention,” Hill said. While recent trends have pushed for reductions in jail time for drug offenders, the attorney general said the wisdom of that trend is called into question by the testimonies of the JCAP participants who say going to jail helped them break the cycle of their addictions.

“Efforts to limit jail time for drug users might be well-intended, but based on what we’ve heard from inmates, one must conclude that the most compassionate course might actually be giving them more jail time,” he said.

The Attorney General went on to clarify that incarcerating drug offenders is not to subject them to the maximum punishment, but rather to “provide them the best possible opportunity to overcome their addiction.”

Hill said he hopes all Indiana counties will have access to the JCAP model, and he plans to press state policymakers to support such programming “as an effective weapon in Indiana’s ongoing battle against substance abuse.”

COA: Man’s Actions Waived Right To Speedy Trial

Olviia Covington for www.theindianalawyer.com

An Indiana man convicted of multiple felony drug charges lost his appeal of his lack of a speedy trial because his actions, including his failure to object to a later trial date, waived his right to such a trial, the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled Friday.

In Lawrence Benton Roper v. State of Indiana, 53A04-1607-CR-1691, Lawrence Roper was charged with various drug-related felonies, as well as a charge of felony possession of a firearm by a serious violent felony and being a habitual offender. Roper, proceeding pro se, verbally requested a “fast and speedy trial” at a hearing on June 25, 2015.

The parties appeared in court on Aug. 27, but the pre-trial hearing was continued to Sept. 24. At the September hearing, Roper, again proceeding pro se, requested a continuance because he had hired counsel the day before. As a result of that request, Roper signed a motion for continuance that contained a waiver of his right to a speedy trial under Criminal Rule 4.

At a subsequent hearing on Nov. 19, Roper moved for another continuance of the trial, which was then reset for Feb. 22, 2016. When Roper requested a third continuance in January 2016, the trial was moved to April.

At the April trial, a jury found Roper guilty of four of his six charges, and he pleaded guilty to being a habitual offender and waived his right to be sentenced within 30 days. But one month later, Roper moved to discharge his conviction, arguing the Monroe Circuit Court had failed to bring him to trial within the Criminal Rule 4(B) timeframe.

The trial court denied Roper’s motion. On appeal, he argued the court had erred by doing so. But the Indiana Court of Appeals disagreed, with Judge Melissa May writing in a Friday opinion that Roper “made no effort to object or otherwise bring any violation of that speedy trial request to the court’s attention until after he was convicted in April 2016.”

“He waffled about whether he was going to retain counsel at his initial hearing, at his bail review hearing, and at the hearing on August 27, 2015,” May wrote. “That August 27, 2015, hearing was mere days before the time limit would expire on Roper’s speedy trial request, and yet Roper did not object to the resetting of that hearing to date past his speedy-trial deadline.”

“Furthermore, at the hearing following the expiration of the seventy-day deadline (under Criminal Rule 4(B)(1)), Roper signed a written Motion for Continuance that included a waiver of his right to a speedy trial under Criminal Rule 4,” May continued. “Roper’s conduct is inconsistent with a desire to have his case tried in a speedy manner, and acted, in conjunction with his other actions, as a waiver of his Criminal Rule 4(b) request.”