Sentenced to College, Student Justifies Judge’s Drug Stand

When Wendy S. Lindley was a deputy district attorney, she sat one day waiting to have her case heard by Superior Court Judge David O. Carter. Lindley idly watched as a young woman spoke to the judge in another case.

The woman, weeping joyously, was with her baby son and her own mother, who was also crying. Ordered by Carter to attend college instead of going to jail on an alcohol-related charge, the young woman was back before him for a progress report, which showed she was doing well.

She was back to thank him, and to say that, because of Judge Carter, her baby was born drug free.

Lindley recalls: “I just sat there crying along with them. And I told myself, ‘This is what I want to do with my life. I want to help people like that.’ ”

Since 1994, she has been Municipal Judge Lindley, sitting in South Court in Laguna Niguel. She’s part of what is called the Drug Court, where rehabilitation instead of jail is the primary goal for nonviolent offenders. Now Lindley has her own successes to talk about.

I’ll tell you about just one of them: 22-year-old Damian Carter. He appeared before Lindley on a drug charge over a year ago. She ordered him into a rehabilitation facility for several months, then shipped him off to Saddleback College. In a regular courtroom, Lindley said, the Aliso Viejo resident would have faced a minimum of a year in jail, and possibly state prison.

He wasn’t the first defendant Lindley sentenced to college instead of jail. But he was the first one she ordered to take specific courses. Carter was not happy to have Judge Lindley planning his life. She decided he needed courses in human development, applied psychology and alcohol/drug studies.

Dick Wilson, who chairs Saddleback’s human sciences department, taught Carter this semester in the human development course. He remembers Carter began it “surly and distant . . . it was obvious he was only there because he had to be.” But by midsemester, Wilson could see a dramatic change in Carter’s attitude--and an improvement in his work.

Wilson recently wrote to Judge Lindley:

“Mr. Carter scored the third highest in the class on his midterm exam out of 45 students. His attitude has taken a 100% change for the better. . . . If there are others like him [in Lindley’s court], we will gladly take them at Saddleback College and give them our best effort. This kind of partnership can make a significant difference in people’s lives.”

Not all the defendants in Lindley’s court are that successful. But the judge has seen enough cases with positive results to become convinced that specialized treatment for nonviolent drug defendants is the right way to go.

When Orange County’s Drug Court opened three years ago, there were only two in the state. Now there are 52 drug courts in California and more than 200 nationwide.

Lindley works not only with the public defender’s office and prosecutors but with probationers and county social workers in deciding a defendant’s fate.

“I always hold it over the defendants’ heads that they will go to jail if they don’t stick with the program we set up for them,” Lindley said.

She doesn’t send them all back to school. Some are allowed to go into the workplace after some kind of rehabilitation. But it has to be a job with “upward mobility, not just flipping hamburgers,” she said. Getting them away from their previous peers brings a huge change in behavior, she says.

Lindley acknowledges that she and other judges trying this approach have their critics, people who believe jail or prison is the only correct sentence. But the proof, she says, is in the numbers: “Studies have shown that for every dollar we spend on this select group of people, it would have taken $7 to incarcerate them.”

I suggested to Lindley that it must be a good feeling to hear about the progress of people such as Damian Carter. She responded: “Outside of the birth of my children, it’s the most satisfying experience of my life.”

Opposites Alike? Lindley stressed repeatedly to me that two local judges deserve credit for paving the way for better understanding of drug cases in Orange County: Carter, mentioned above, and Superior Court Judge James L. Gray.

I immediately thought about how different they were. Carter is a former homicide prosecutor. Gray made quite a splash a few years ago when he was the first judge to publicly favor legalizing some drugs. Lindley stresses that she does not favor drug legalization. But she credits Gray with educating the public that nonviolent drug offenders need help.

Patchwork Aid: Judge Lindley is a strong believer in “the patch.” She predicts that it will soon be as common as urine testing for identifying drug users, especially with the growing problem of methamphetamine use by young people.

It’s sometimes called a “sweat patch.” It’s not much larger than a Band-Aid, and is usually worn on the upper arm. The patch can be taken off and tested in the lab for drugs, which show up through normal body perspiration.

Dan Verwiel, who assists the courts with the sweat patch he distributes through his Anaheim-based Sentencing Concepts, an alternative sentencing program, says he’s receiving orders for it from the East Coast and even Japan. Some judges are simply sentencing some minor drug defendants to use the patch because it is so effective in changing their behavior.

“It’s a very strong deterrent,” Verwiel said. “Because a defendant knows if he slips up, it will show on the patch.”

Wrap-Up: Last week, Damian Carter received a small scholarship to continue his studies at Saddleback next year, free of court order. He’s also been accepted to participate in a summer mentoring program. He will help other students.

Carter said winding up in Lindley’s court is the best thing that could have happened to him.

“She’s awesome,” he said. “She’s helped a lot of people, not just me.”

His goal now: To become a probation officer, to help others like himself.

Jerry Hicks’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Readers may reach Hicks by call-ing the Times Orange County Edition at (714) 966-7823 or by fax to (714) 966-7711, or e-mail [email protected]