This is an awesome discussion. I can relate to this and applaud you Mr. Foss for your work. I have had the unfortunate (or fortunate depending on how you look at it) opportunity to have experience within the criminal justice system in trying to help my son who became enmessed in the mess that is the criminal justice system. I used to believe in the ability of this system and what it did to keep us safe and to do the right thing until I was involved with my son and seeing what really was happening. I watched as a prosecutor "worked the room" as she walked into the courtroom meeting and greeting all the attorneys and acting like she was the best thing in the court room. I watched as she had no desire or need to know the situations or circumstances surrounding what had happened to the people she was making decisions about. I watched this several times during my time trying to help my son. My husband and I asked numerous times to allow my son to go to an appropriate rehabilitation facility for his drug abuse, one that would actually help his level of abuse. Ultimately what happened after repeat offenses was that there was a plea agreement made, our attorney advised my son to take that agreement and he did, only to have all of his charges brought back at him through relevant conduct (which quite frankly in this case seemed like she was using it incorrectly, but as you said the prosecutors can do pretty much what they want). He is now spending 11 years in prison. His son, who has now been diagnosed with type one diabetes has been placed in a very stress-filled situation with his father gone (whom he adored) and is in a situation that is difficult for any 12 year old to work through. Not to mention what it has done to our family as a whole and the stress, financial burden, etc. that have been created by this decision. I realize my son is no angel. He was placed in drug court at one point (we had asked for him to go to a residential treatment facility in the next state as this state has none, but were told no and they put him in drug court. Statistically speaking drug courts have a 75% recidivism rate). Once in drug court, he did well, he graduated and was doing great for about 4 years. Then his father (we are divorced and each has been remarried) decided to start cutting his hours so he wasn't making the money he needed to pay his bills, his long time girlfriend decided to leave him and after going for some job interviews and being turned down time and time again due to his criminal record, he relapsed. That sent him down a hole that he couldn't come out of. We tried to reach him, but he avoided us as he felt as though we had done enough and that he wasn't worth our efforts. We lost him, once again. I truly believe if we could have gotten him into an appropriate rehab, he wouldn't be where he is right now. We tried several times and each time our biggest obstacle was the criminal justice system. They wouldn't let him go to any other places, but ones here. Despite the research and understanding that is out there about addiction and appropriate treatment for someone in his position, they still felt his attending a 30 day program was sufficient. Basically, according to my research, those programs are not real helpful for most people. His drug of choice was Meth and that particular drug and its affect on the body, 30 days will not help. There is all kinds of data out there, but they didn't care about that. I brought it all to them. I spent night after night after night coming home from work and pouring over the data from NIDA, NIH, from so many sources I can't even remember and it all was saying the same thing and none of it was being used by the "system". The prosecutor was looking for the next notch in her belt. The other prosecutor we dealt with was hoping that my son would fail in the drug court and then he could sentence him to 25 years.
Thank you for writing this, especially from the prosecutor's perspective of what they can do, how much of an impact they can have on the community and on people's lives, how they can shift the way our system works and make it work for the people and our communities. To be honest the last judge we had actually laughed as she sentenced my son, truly she laughed and I was in such shock. I couldn't believe that a professional would do such a thing. She didn't care what happened to our family, to our grandson or to our son. Then we found out that she was a Real Estate lawyer who had been appointed to a federal judge's position in criminal court. Yeah, the system is messed up for sure. We wrote a letter to her telling her how that made us feel and that we were disappointed that someone in her position would think that an OK thing to do. She never responded to us. In my opinion, she doesn't belong on a bench, but that is just my opinion.
Thank you again for bringing important information to light. Hope this helps a lot of people!!!! Wish it could help us get my son back home. We all need him here.
ORIGINAL COMMENT
This is an awesome discussion. I can relate to this and applaud you Mr. Foss for your work. I have had the unfortunate (or fortunate depending on how you look at it) opportunity to have experience within the criminal justice system in trying to help my son who became enmessed in the mess that is the criminal justice system. I used to believe in the ability of this system and what it did to keep us safe and to do the right thing until I was involved with my son and seeing what really was happening. I watched as a prosecutor "worked the room" as she walked into the courtroom meeting and greeting all the attorneys and acting like she was the best thing in the court room. I watched as she had no desire or need to know the situations or circumstances surrounding what had happened to the people she was making decisions about. I watched this several times during my time trying to help my son. My husband and I asked numerous times to allow my son to go to an appropriate rehabilitation facility for his drug abuse, one that would actually help his level of abuse. Ultimately what happened after repeat offenses was that there was a plea agreement made, our attorney advised my son to take that agreement and he did, only to have all of his charges brought back at him through relevant conduct (which quite frankly in this case seemed like she was using it incorrectly, but as you said the prosecutors can do pretty much what they want). He is now spending 11 years in prison. His son, who has now been diagnosed with type one diabetes has been placed in a very stress-filled situation with his father gone (whom he adored) and is in a situation that is difficult for any 12 year old to work through. Not to mention what it has done to our family as a whole and the stress, financial burden, etc. that have been created by this decision. I realize my son is no angel. He was placed in drug court at one point (we had asked for him to go to a residential treatment facility in the next state as this state has none, but were told no and they put him in drug court. Statistically speaking drug courts have a 75% recidivism rate). Once in drug court, he did well, he graduated and was doing great for about 4 years. Then his father (we are divorced and each has been remarried) decided to start cutting his hours so he wasn't making the money he needed to pay his bills, his long time girlfriend decided to leave him and after going for some job interviews and being turned down time and time again due to his criminal record, he relapsed. That sent him down a hole that he couldn't come out of. We tried to reach him, but he avoided us as he felt as though we had done enough and that he wasn't worth our efforts. We lost him, once again. I truly believe if we could have gotten him into an appropriate rehab, he wouldn't be where he is right now. We tried several times and each time our biggest obstacle was the criminal justice system. They wouldn't let him go to any other places, but ones here. Despite the research and understanding that is out there about addiction and appropriate treatment for someone in his position, they still felt his attending a 30 day program was sufficient. Basically, according to my research, those programs are not real helpful for most people. His drug of choice was Meth and that particular drug and its affect on the body, 30 days will not help. There is all kinds of data out there, but they didn't care about that. I brought it all to them. I spent night after night after night coming home from work and pouring over the data from NIDA, NIH, from so many sources I can't even remember and it all was saying the same thing and none of it was being used by the "system". The prosecutor was looking for the next notch in her belt. The other prosecutor we dealt with was hoping that my son would fail in the drug court and then he could sentence him to 25 years.
Thank you for writing this, especially from the prosecutor's perspective of what they can do, how much of an impact they can have on the community and on people's lives, how they can shift the way our system works and make it work for the people and our communities. To be honest the last judge we had actually laughed as she sentenced my son, truly she laughed and I was in such shock. I couldn't believe that a professional would do such a thing. She didn't care what happened to our family, to our grandson or to our son. Then we found out that she was a Real Estate lawyer who had been appointed to a federal judge's position in criminal court. Yeah, the system is messed up for sure. We wrote a letter to her telling her how that made us feel and that we were disappointed that someone in her position would think that an OK thing to do. She never responded to us. In my opinion, she doesn't belong on a bench, but that is just my opinion.
Thank you again for bringing important information to light. Hope this helps a lot of people!!!! Wish it could help us get my son back home. We all need him here.
Tammy Forbes