Supreme Court candidates differ on how to fight heroin use
Dallet wants drug courts; Screnock aims for laws
MADISON – The candidates for Wisconsin Supreme Court say the courts should do more to fight the state’s heroin epidemic, but they differ on how to do it.
Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Rebecca Dallet — a former prosecutor — said Wisconsin must do more to help fund drug treatment courts and help communities, especially those in rural areas, that are struggling with an unprecedented stream of drug crimes.
“We’re at a crossroads that no one’s ever been at before,” said Dallet, who has been backed by Democratic groups.
Sauk County Circuit Court Judge Michael Screnock, who leads a treatment court in his county, said the state should focus on writing clear laws and guidelines for those courts. There is too little guidance available right now for judges who are making the difficult decisions about when to lock up addicts who re-offend, he said.
“That’s something I’d really be interested in assisting on,” said Screnock, who has been backed by Republicans.
The rate of opioid overdose deaths in Wisconsin nearly doubled from 5.9 deaths per 100,000 residents in 2006 to 10.7 deaths per 100,000 in 2015, according to the Wisconsin Department of Health Services.
Opioid overdoses caused 1,824 deaths in Wisconsin from 2013 to 2015.
Parts of the state also have seen a sharp uptick in methamphetamine abuse over the past several years, according to a recent state Department of Justice report.
Despite that, some rural counties in Wisconsin still depend on a single judge to handle the criminal cases being generated by this toxic wave of addiction.
Dallet said that makes it difficult for these counties to pursue options like drug courts, which seek to combine substance abuse and other treatment services with the typical sentences in criminal cases.
The goal is to break the cycle of addiction leading to new criminal offenses and new problems for public safety and taxpayers.
She gave the example of a judge in Sawyer County who told her he was unable to provide that level of attention to drug cases.
“There’s so many cases coming in and he just doesn’t have the resources let alone the resources to really treat the people who are coming in. So I think we’re going to have to talk about that,” Dallet said.
The Milwaukee judge said she understood these challenges because of her 11 years as a prosecutor and nearly a decade on the bench.
“I’m the only candidate who has that deep understanding having worked in that system,” Dallet said.
Screnock agreed on the value of treatment courts, saying he sees offenders who come before him having achieved a month of sobriety for the first time in years, sometimes since their early adolescence.
“I’m stunned in a sad way,” he said. “I’ll ask them, ‘Did you ever think you could do that?’ and they’ll say, ‘No.’ “
Screnock also acknowledged the challenges of running a treatment court as one of three judges in his county, saying the cases came on top of his regular workload.
But he said that the drug epidemic was also straining other public resources, such as county human services departments. The judge didn’t rule out more resources for courts but said he didn’t want to shortchange other deserving agencies.
Screnock has spent the last two years as the first treatment court judge in Sauk County and said he was surprised when he started how little guidance was available for judges.
Of particular concern, he said, was a lack of clarity on when offenders can be jailed or otherwise incarcerated to help force them to get treatment after a lapse. Sometimes, only the state Department of Corrections has the authority to start that process, not the judge.
He said the Legislature should pursue legislation or the Supreme Court should write rules to help ensure judges aren’t overstepping their bounds and locking up offenders without the legal authority to do so.
“It’s important to me,” Screnock said of the need to uphold the law and keep government power in check. “(Jail) is the ultimate restraint on someone’s liberty.”