Drug/DWI Court tracks facts with new iPad, laptop

Waco - County Court-at-Law Judge Mike Freeman showed up in Commissioners' Court a week ago on Tuesday, 4/17/12, to deliver a report about going through the motions to comply with a mandatory state drug and drunk driving diversion program.

The judge presented an inked-in, crossed-out receipt from the local Best Buy big box store for a new iPad and a laptop computer for $1,129.96 for “The purchase of an I Pad 3, an air box, and a notebook with a key board.”

The receipt is dated Monday, 4/16/12.

Judge Freeman also sought approval to spend $500 “to assist one of our participants with an anxiety disorder aiding him with assistance from a local psychiatrist” and a payment of $1,500 per year for defense attorneys “on the DWI/Drug Court team.”

In his recitals, the judge said a team of 5 people from McLennan County “attended the National Drug Court Program for approximately three days” in July of 2007.

In September of that year, the legislature enacted a mandate requiring every county of 200,000 or more population to establish a drug court, “and provided that such programs could charge a fee not to exceed $1,000 per participate (sic) and also provided funds to said programs by accessing to each individual defendant, charged with a crime that involved alcohol or drugs, an additional cost to run these programs.”

McLennan County now has $132,000 “in said account,” according to the judge. “We have been very frugal over the years as to how this money was used,” Judge Freeman stated.

In his written report, he offered no total numbers of participants who either did, or did not graduate. 
Almost half the offenders who participated in the program are youthful, aged 18 to 25; about one fourth are 25 to 35, with the remainder evenly distributed betweeen those who are aged 45 to 55, and older. Slightly more than 70 percent graduate from the program with a sobriety time of 463 days; the unsuccessful candidates amass an average of 241 days of sobriety.