Judge Currie Gets Probation

In an update to my post here, Carroll Circuit Court Judge Donald Currie received probation, will have his driver’s license restricted, and will have to pay court costs due to a recent charge of Public Intoxication.  Here is the full story, from the Carroll County Comet.

Carroll Circuit Court Judge Donald Currie pled not guilty at an initial hearing Dec. 26 after being arrested for public intoxication Dec. 23 in Boone County. A bench trial was scheduled for March at the initial hearing, but Currie then scheduled a plea agreement for Feb. 19. However, that date was moved up when Currie pled and was found guilty in Boone County Superior Court II by Judge Rebecca McClure Jan. 22.

According to the Lebanon Reporter, Currie was found guilty of a Class B misdemeanor and issued a 180-day suspended sentence with credit given for his day in the Boone County Jail. Currie was ordered to pay $450 legal fees and his drivers’ license was restricted.

Currie’s case could be investigated by the Indiana Judicial Qualifications Commission concerning judicial conduct violations. According to Meg Babcock, supervisor for the counsel to the commission, that process is completely separate from the court case and is not a matter of public record until the time formal charges are filed with the Indiana Supreme Court.

“There is a lot the commission can do short of filing charges,” Babcock said.

She said there could be no investigation, suspension from office without pay and other remedies which include fines, removal from office or disbarment. She called removal from office the “ultimate sanction.” Babcock said the Indiana Supreme Court would be the entity to decide upon the sanction if charges were filed. The commission would be making a recommendation to that court.

Babcock referred the Comet to two similar cases investigated by the commission in the past two years. In both cases, the judges stipulated to the facts of the cases and their “misconduct.” Both were issued a “public reprimand” for their behavior.

National Story: Rethinking Juvenile Justice

From the Associated Press, via the South Bend Tribune comes this story about the tendency to give juvenile offenders adult consequences.  Basically, it states this tendency was a reaction to spikes in juvenile crime in the late 80’s and early 90’s.  Since the time the laws were changed to treat juveniles as adults, research is now coming in indicating that sending juveniles to adult facilities only makes them better criminals.  Several states are looking at retooling their juvenile systems to focus on treatment, instead of incarceration with adults.

As the Blogmeister has stated previously, he worked with juveniles during the early 1990’s in a program designed to change behavior and keep juveniles out of adult facilities.  He knows first hand that these programs do work.  However, there are cases where the programs fail.  With anything, we must not let the pendulum swing to far either way.  There will be cases where the public is best served by long term incarceration and others where treatment is the best option.  Read the story and decide for yourself, but in the Blogmeiser’s opinion, varied options available to the judiciary is the best public policy.

Doing What Works in Juvenile Justice

The Indy Star has a good article on a program Marion County has for Juvenile Offenders.  You can view it here.

From the article:

“THE PROGRAM AT A GLANCE

The Community Transition Program in Marion County is mandatory for juvenile offenders incarcerated in state detention facilities. Probation officers and counselors begin working with the teens and their families as soon as their sentences begin.

The teens are released 60 days early to begin a transition phase. They also are linked with mentors as part of the program, to get them into educational programs or jobs.

The program has 111 teens enrolled; about 200 have started the program since its launch in July 2006. It serves kids ages 12 to 19.”

If you read the whole article, it notes the Indiana Juvenile Justice Task Force is heavily involved in this. In the interest of full disclosure, the Blogmiester worked for IJJTF about 15 years ago when these programs (in other counties) were just getting off the ground. The Blogmiester is a big fan of these programs because they really do work. It’s unfortunate they are often viewed as being “easy on crime” and aren’t used in every county in the state. The only other complaint about these programs is they often employ therapists/counselors with very little family training.  However, they are definitely better that the “lock them up and throw away the key” mentality in some counties.