By Emily Jarrett
The Sedalia Democrat
SEDALIA, Mo. — In June 2012, a Sedalia man was sentenced in Division 6 Circuit Court on multiple counts of possession, intent to distribute and possession of drug paraphernalia. A few months earlier during a traffic stop he was found with meth and marijuana, which led to a search of his home where Sedalia Police Department officers found two pounds of marijuana, four grams of meth, two firearms, drug paraphernalia and records regarding drug sales.
During the sentencing hearing Pettis County Prosecuting Attorney Jeff Mittelhauser recommended a 12 year sentence. The defense attorney asked for probation.
In the end the judge sentenced the man to serve seven years in the Department of Corrections; he will likely be out in as little as two years.
“It’s frustrating,” said Circuit Court Presiding Judge Robert Koffman. “If I’m making $30,000 a year selling meth and get caught and sent to prison and I know my actual time served will be four months instead of three years, what’s going to stop me? For them it’s the cost of doing business.”
In his 32 years on the bench, Koffman has seen the rise of drug cases and the toll it takes on the community. Since becoming the Circuit Court judge in 2005, Koffman estimates “99.9 percent of the cases I see, there’s an element of drugs involved.”
“Even if it’s not the original charge, drugs are often a motivating factor for so many things,” he said. “Stealing, driving with a revoked license, not paying court costs or child support. Drugs affect all of it.”
Generations of abuse
Depending on the charge, a person arrested for possession of meth will sit before Koffman or Associate Circuit Court Judge Robert Liston, who handles the court’s misdemeanor cases.
During his some 40 years in law, Liston has seen firsthand the rise and change of the meth culture in Sedalia.
“I started in 1971 and back then, crystal meth was mentioned very, very rarely,” he said. “In the 1990s I really started to see it pop up a lot but back then I was seeing cases of people manufacturing meth, making small or large batches of it.”
In his 10 years on the bench Liston said manufacturing cases have dwindled as possession cases have risen. Law enforcement officers believe meth is more often being trucked in through Mexican cartels, rather than made locally, something Liston said he’s seeing in his courtroom.
“There have been files where cartels, particularly Los Zetas, have been mentioned, numerous files,” he said. “I see the misdemeanor cases so it’s usually simple possession, some distribution, some possession with intent to distribute, nothing too big. Those cases go upstairs.”
“Upstairs” is to Koffman’s courtroom, where felonies are prosecuted. Both judges said they routinely see the same users and dealers arrested for the same drug charges again and again.
“I’ve sent people to prison who are addicted to meth because their mothers put it in their bottles as babies to keep them from crying,” Koffman said. “And now this poor soul is standing in front of me, a product of that. Who’s going to teach these kids that’s wrong? No one. I’m dealing with the grandchildren of people I dealt with 30 years ago.”
Sentences and reality
Both Koffman and Liston have few tools available to them when deciding on sentencing of a drug user or dealer. Probation, treatment, shock detention and prison time are typically the only options available depending on the severity of the crime and the history of the offender.
For those who are convicted of a felony who do not have a plea agreement with Mittelhauser, Koffman ultimately decides their fate.
“I use a Sentence Assessment Report, I listen to the defense attorney and the prosecuting attorney’s arguments and I listen to the evidence. Then I stir all that together and compare it to other similar cases,” he said. “There are little differences in every case that make you go this way as opposed to that way, but I keep it balanced. Those are the tools I use to decide how many years you’ll be sentenced to.”
After Koffman makes the ruling, the case is handed off to the Department of Corrections, which has the final say in how long an offender must serve in prison. Because drug charges are most often considered nonviolent crimes, offenders typically serve only a fraction of an original sentence. According to Missouri Department of Corrections Public Information Officer Mandi Steele, the most recent data available shows drug offenders serve an average of 21 percent of their sentence. The reason offenders are usually paroled earlier than expected is largely due to funding, Mittelhauser said.
“Prisons, corrections in particular, don’t have enough money to do what they should be doing,” he said. “Even before the recession hit four or five years ago, the prisons were overcrowded, and if they keep one person longer because they committed a violent crime, they release a nonviolent offender sooner.”
Both Mittelhauser and Koffman dispute the assertion that drug crimes are nonviolent.
“What’s a nonviolent crime? I believe if someone breaks into your home and steals something so they can go buy meth, that’s violence in your life,” Koffman said. “And when you’re selling, I consider that violent. When you sell meth to someone, you’re hurting them, you’re destroying their families.”
Another logistical issue Koffman deals with is probation times. First time possession of meth charges, more often than not, end up with a five years supervised probation sentence, he said.
“But the government says for every one month you’re good on probation, they’ll take a month off the end, so really you’re only doing two and a half year’s of probation,” he said. “Now, if I order someone on probation to pay restitution or court costs and they’re supposed to pay so much every month, taking months off the end means they don’t have to pay. It defeats what I’m trying to do in the courtroom.”
There is one expection to the first time offender rule, Koffman added, those convicted of distribution do not receive probation.
“I do take exception with people who sell (drugs) even if it’s their first offense,” he said. “People will show up (in court) and want probation for selling this crap. I say to them, ‘Why do you sell them rat poison? Because it does the same thing.’ ”
A difficult, successful program
One thing Koffman, Liston and Mittelhauser all agree on is the success of the Pettis County Drug Court. For those who qualify, first-time offenders are given a one-time chance to avoid jail time by participating in the court-supervised treatment program. For up to two years, participants are required to not only stay clean, but attend multiple weekly meetings, take random urine analysis tests, pay restitution and hold down a job, among other things. In the past 10 years, only three or four drug court graduates have reoffended, Mittelhauser said.
“I was around when drug courts began and I was a doubting Thomas, I thought you would just be holding (the offender’s) hands and it wouldn’t solve any drug problems,” Koffman said. “I was 100 percent wrong. They work. It’s a difficult program because it’s so intense, but it’ll make an adult out of you real quick.”
Koffman said many of the people who qualify for drug court “aren’t bad people, they’re just in the wrong crowd and do bad things.”
“Drug court forces you to grow up and leave behind those people,” he said. “If you want to get off meth, or any drug, you can’t go back to the lifestyle you had while on drugs; it just doesn’t work. Drug court forces them to get some discipline in their life.”
Some counties have expanded the drug court model to include driving while intoxicated courts, child support courts and the like. Koffman said he would like to see Pettis County offer similar systems for first-time offenders, but it’s not likely to happen.
“I don’t know how you could expand it without a great deal of money,” he said. “Right now we have two to four people to run a drug court with 30 participants. To expand it for those other crimes is a great idea, but then you’d need a whole host of judges and clerks to take care of just those courts. I don’t think it could work here.”
“I don’t know if there’s a better way to deal with first- time offenders,” Liston said. “You have to deal with addiction, and drug court is a good way to get to the root of the problem. The question we’re looking at is how does it turn people’s lives around in five or 10 years. Addiction is a powerful thing; some people kick it and do just fine, other people go to treatment multiple times and still can’t get off it.”
Koffman said the successes of drug court are numerous, but it doesn’t work for everyone. An offender’s first three to four months in the court are usually the hardest, and Koffman has no qualms about kicking out offenders who fail urine tests or don’t show up to meetings.
“They bring the rest of the group down,” he said. “I had a young man who I had to kick out of drug court. He had his whole life ahead of him and he didn’t want to fix it. I asked him why he did the things he did and he said, ‘I like me better high than not high.’ Isn’t that sad?”
While Koffman said he likes to know the “why” behind someone’s addiction to meth, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter.
“I’m not a social worker, I’m not equipped to do that job. I’m a trial judge,” he said. “My job is to divine the law and then apply the facts of the case to arrive at a result similar to other cases. I don’t know that it’s the court’s job to fix someone’s addiction; it’s my job to apply the laws that we have on the books.”
He was quick to point out that drug-related cases continue to dominate the court’s resources.
“You take drugs out of the equation and I’m a bored man, I have nothing to do,” Koffman said. “You wouldn’t need half the judges or clerks, the law business would dry up. It is the single driving force behind criminal behavior today and everyone should care about that. But they don’t seem to.”
— Democrat Intern Andy Lyons contributed to this story.
SENTENCING RECOMMENDATIONS
After a suspect pleads or is found guilty, a judge has four available options for sentencing:
• Probation
• Community Structured Sentence — a nonprison sentence served in the community under strict supervision. It may include electronic monitoring of home-based incarceration or require the offender to attend substance abuse programs.
• Institutional Shock or Treatment — the offender has a short prison stay, from 24-hours to 120 days, that must be completed.
• Prison sentence
— Source: Missouri Sentencing Advisory Commission
Sentencing Assessment Reports
Commonly known as SARs, sentencing assessment reports detail the severity of the offense, impact on victims and the offender’s risk of re-offending. They also give recommended sentence options and correctional resources available. Judges will typically use the report when deciding on a sentencing agreement.
— Source: Missouri court system, mo.courts.gov.
MISSOURI PRISONS
As of June 2012, the latest date available for data, Missouri had 2,303 people convicted of distribution, delivery or manufacturing of a controlled substance in its prisons, with an average sentence time of 2.9 years. Felony possession of a controlled substance, which includes meth, saw 1,885 people in its prisons with an average sentence of 3.4 years.
— Source: Missouri Department of Corrections