So yesterday (August 24) I turned 49. Last year in this decade and this half of the century. I tried to come up with something profound but – nada. It’s been a dry spell for ideas lately.
Turning 49 is like winning $10.00 in the lottery. It's better than the alternative, but it’s not big enough to write home about.
No newspaper articles. No big celebrations. Those are for birthdays that end in a zero.
We did dinner with the fam and I got a new clicker for my truck.
I was thrilled. It was exactly what I wanted, since the keyless entry thingy that came with it in 1999 had long ago worn out. So had the extra one.
When you’re a kid, birthdays are all about the presents. The cards are just for keeping the money from getting lost.
When you’re fast approaching 50, it’s all about the cards. I loved them all. I got enough stuff, but a person can never have too many people to care about them. Cards are kind of a geiger counter for that.
Mostly, I’m just amazed that I’m this old.
This is how old I think of my dad being. I can’t possibly be as old as him. He's "DAD" old!
I can still do the same things that I did when I was 29. I just have to plan them out better, and a lot of times I think, “Yeah, I can do that, but DAMN, it’s gonna hurt tomorrow if I do.”
So I don’t. I think about it and decide that once I take out the deductible for the inevitable medical treatment, the cost of hiring someone else to take the pain for me is pretty reasonable especially if it's amortized out over the time it'll take the bruises to fade.
For this reason, I no longer do ladders longer than 8 feet or dig holes deeper than 18 inches.
I heard someone say one time that their tool kit consisted of a hammer and a checkbook; what one wouldn’t fix, the other one would.
The one thing about approaching half a century is that you learn to adjust your expectations. Some things are simply not going to happen in the time remaining – we just have to accept it.
I’m not going to win the Boston Marathon. I’m not even likely to enter given my aversion to breaking a sweat if it can be avoided.
Regardless of which political party is in power, I will not be nominated for a seat on the Supreme Court. I sincerely hope that I never have to argue a case there. They don’ t make a bottle of Maalox big enough to handle that.
The Nobel Committee has not put any resources into trying to find my telephone number. This is good, because all I have is a cell and it's not listed.
On the other hand, there are realities that no longer trouble me in the slightest.
I no longer need to save closet space for jeans with a size 34 waist, my breakfast cereal for the rest of my life will be chosen primarily for fiber content rather than sugar content, and pizza after 9:00 at night will be sorely regretted at 2:00 in the morning. I sometimes dream about these things, but I certainly don't stay awake at night worrying about them.
Overall, though, I’m warm, I’m fed and I interact with people who seem to love me and whom I love on a regular basis.
There’s a lot worse things out there than being 49. Maybe that's the most profound thing about it.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
On Crime and Punishment.
You never know what it feels like until you’re in that person’s shoes.
I mean, it’s easy to sit back and watch some parent on television, broken hearted and insisting that their child is really a good kid, despite whatever heinous crime they’ve committed.
It’s easy to look down your nose and say, “You’re the only one that thinks that; the rest of us think he ought to be locked up for a long time,” regardless of whether the story is about an actual conviction or a mere arrest.
Then it happens to you, and you realize that sometimes there are blinders as to the reality.
Circumstances that might excuse some actions.
This is the position I found myself in a few days ago.
No, it’s not the kids. Their felonious tendencies seem to be in check for right now, especially with school starting in just a few days. All have at least temporary driver's licenses and are somewhat mobile. Between jobs, football practice and the pool there’s little time to get into too much trouble even if they were so inclined.
No, our little criminal is much closer to home, and without shame.
I was sitting in the office and thought he was napping elsewhere.
Parental mistake #1 -- if you can't hear them, they are up to something. I knew this and should have been more alert.
Eventually I realized I wasn’t alone in the room and turned around to see the newest addition to our family sitting across the room with evidence everywhere.
It was a crime scene that didn’t need detectives to interpret. Bits of evidence were plastered all over him and he couldn’t get them off.
It seems that the tags under the furniture – those that clearly state ‘DO NOT REMOVE UNDER PENALTY OF LAW’ proved too much of a temptation. Someone had snuck under there and ripped them loose.
There are always factors that trip up the criminals, though, if you know where to look. In this case the tags weren’t attached with staples, but were stick-on labels that apparently adhere to dog fur about as well as they do to upholstery.
As a result, determining guilt or innocence wasn't all that difficult.
Yoko (his name has finally been resolved, although he still gets called “Spud” on occasion) had bits of sticky tag all over him and couldn’t get them off.
He wasn’t all that enthused about me helping, either since he had pieces of label stuck to lots of sensitive places, but we got through it.
Like any good parent, I covered the crime. After all, this was a relatively minor event, a first offense. Even in dog years he's still a juvenile and the record would be sealed. If authorities found out, he’d likely get deferred prosecution or maybe a bit of unsupervised probation.
When we enable, though, it just makes things worse. He’s now addicted to both types of tags and frequently sneaks off to see if he can find another. It’s no longer a puppyhood prank, but is now a full-blown crime spree and I continue to be sucked into more and more involvement.
I’m losing patience and we may have talked about scheduling an intervention if things don’t improve soon. Somewhere he’s found stuffing that can be removed and brought along with the tag. I don't want someone to try to relax into a chair and fall through to the springs or the floor.
Whoda thunk of "PENALTY OF LAW" labels as a gateway drug??
In the meantime, my “self-help intervention” takes the form of a long wooden spoon, retired from kitchen duty but sufficient to extend my reach under larger pieces of furniture.
He doesn’t like it, and immediately drops his ears when I wave it his direction, so there’s hope that we’ll curb the inappropriate behavior.
And now I understand more about the parents who maintain that their child isn’t really a bad kid, despite evidence to the contrary.
Sometimes, we have blinders on to even the most obvious of circumstances.
I mean, it’s easy to sit back and watch some parent on television, broken hearted and insisting that their child is really a good kid, despite whatever heinous crime they’ve committed.
It’s easy to look down your nose and say, “You’re the only one that thinks that; the rest of us think he ought to be locked up for a long time,” regardless of whether the story is about an actual conviction or a mere arrest.
Then it happens to you, and you realize that sometimes there are blinders as to the reality.
Circumstances that might excuse some actions.
This is the position I found myself in a few days ago.
No, it’s not the kids. Their felonious tendencies seem to be in check for right now, especially with school starting in just a few days. All have at least temporary driver's licenses and are somewhat mobile. Between jobs, football practice and the pool there’s little time to get into too much trouble even if they were so inclined.
No, our little criminal is much closer to home, and without shame.
I was sitting in the office and thought he was napping elsewhere.
Parental mistake #1 -- if you can't hear them, they are up to something. I knew this and should have been more alert.
Eventually I realized I wasn’t alone in the room and turned around to see the newest addition to our family sitting across the room with evidence everywhere.
It was a crime scene that didn’t need detectives to interpret. Bits of evidence were plastered all over him and he couldn’t get them off.
It seems that the tags under the furniture – those that clearly state ‘DO NOT REMOVE UNDER PENALTY OF LAW’ proved too much of a temptation. Someone had snuck under there and ripped them loose.
There are always factors that trip up the criminals, though, if you know where to look. In this case the tags weren’t attached with staples, but were stick-on labels that apparently adhere to dog fur about as well as they do to upholstery.
As a result, determining guilt or innocence wasn't all that difficult.
Yoko (his name has finally been resolved, although he still gets called “Spud” on occasion) had bits of sticky tag all over him and couldn’t get them off.
He wasn’t all that enthused about me helping, either since he had pieces of label stuck to lots of sensitive places, but we got through it.
Like any good parent, I covered the crime. After all, this was a relatively minor event, a first offense. Even in dog years he's still a juvenile and the record would be sealed. If authorities found out, he’d likely get deferred prosecution or maybe a bit of unsupervised probation.
When we enable, though, it just makes things worse. He’s now addicted to both types of tags and frequently sneaks off to see if he can find another. It’s no longer a puppyhood prank, but is now a full-blown crime spree and I continue to be sucked into more and more involvement.
I’m losing patience and we may have talked about scheduling an intervention if things don’t improve soon. Somewhere he’s found stuffing that can be removed and brought along with the tag. I don't want someone to try to relax into a chair and fall through to the springs or the floor.
Whoda thunk of "PENALTY OF LAW" labels as a gateway drug??
In the meantime, my “self-help intervention” takes the form of a long wooden spoon, retired from kitchen duty but sufficient to extend my reach under larger pieces of furniture.
He doesn’t like it, and immediately drops his ears when I wave it his direction, so there’s hope that we’ll curb the inappropriate behavior.
And now I understand more about the parents who maintain that their child isn’t really a bad kid, despite evidence to the contrary.
Sometimes, we have blinders on to even the most obvious of circumstances.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
The Last (?) Word on Bling
So there it is. There’s always at least two sides to every story, and the truth usually is somewhere in the middle. Having practiced law for over a quarter of a century, I should have remembered that and taken it into consideration before blasting the AOC and Mr. Stahl for their decision, and for that I apologize.
Let me say first that I did find Mr. Stahl’s email address; it wasn’t especially easy to find (I’d never ran across www.ncgov.com before his email, but you can bet it's in my favorites now), but it’s not hard to make an educated guess once you know the format for the agency. His phone number was readily available, and I could have contacted any number of people at the courthouse and probably gotten the address. Having been the administrator whose name appears on the front page of the paper myself, though, I didn’t initially publish it because I figured enough other people would find it and his email box would be flooded already. I’m not completely without compassion for those who work for state or local government; It is included in his response only because of his permission, which I appreciate.
After reading the rebuttal, I see that the decision not to use ankle bracelets to detect alcohol use wasn’t an arbitrary decision by a bureaucrat ran amok as I first maintained but rather was made after some research occurred – research that the media didn’t bother to discuss in much detail. If I were in court arguing on behalf of a client, I’d be making a great many of the points that Mr. Stahl has made in his letter about why my client shouldn't be subjected to this intrusion into his or her life.
It’s different to be advocating for a position, though – something that my clients expect and my profession requires – and being “Joe Citizen” who is appalled at the number of lives ruined by drunk drivers and the failures of the system to deal with repeat offenders. My job in the courtroom is to play by the rules that exist, but as a private citizen I can argue for a change in those laws.
I’d also point out that my own liberal ideology leads me to object to any intrusion on individual liberties or freedoms, and I seldom think that those intrusions are a fair trade for the rights that are diminished. If those who want to restrict our liberty are not continually beat back, we’ll soon have no liberty left. That being said, though, the approach to dealing with repeat DUI offenders is inflicting terrible harm on our society, and something needs to change.
What is apparent is that there is a lot of blame to go around for the failures in the systems that handle the problem of drunk drivers.
People are not responsible in their actions.
The legislature fails to appropriate sufficient funds to adequately address the problem.
Programs and solutions are fractured across a variety of state agencies, many with competing goals and interests, so that they are in effect undermining one another.
As an attorney, I’ve seen that regardless of what restrictions the judge imposes, many probation officers feel it is their function to see that those under their supervision violate the terms of their probation and eventually go to jail. This isn’t how the system is supposed to work, but the power trip that goes with being able to control virtually every aspect of someone’s life is a powerful drug and is a reality that those involved in the criminal court system face every day. The game of "gotcha" is one that never seems to get boring for some people.
The one aspect I will address about the use of these devices is the cost. I don’t think that the argument about the cost to the individual is especially relevant, because we do other things that have financially devastating impacts on offenders and their families and I have a hard time seeing the difference.
For example, in some circumstances you are required to have an ignition interlock device (i.e. “blow-n-go”) installed on your vehicle. This costs $70.00 to install, plus there’s a monthly monitoring fee of $60.00 during the use of the equipment (usually 12 months). This is paid to Monitech, the private company that is the only approved provider in North Carolina.
The argument for differentiating between the blow-n-go and the ankle bracelet is that driving is a “privilege”, as opposed to merely existing, which is a “right.” I’d submit that this is slicing the onion a bit thinly.
Anyone who lives in a place that doesn’t offer reasonable public transportation can hardly survive without the ability to drive. As a result, once they can’t drive they lose their jobs, which often leads to losing their home and any number of other problems. When faced with those choices, many, many offenders chose to drive despite the restrictions. In reality, driving isn’t much more of a privilege than existing is. In a perfect society that offered alternative transportation that wouldn’t be the case; that’s not the world that we live in, though, at least in North Carolina.
What I do agree with is that the alternative shouldn’t be “jail or the ankle bracelet.” There shouldn’t be the opportunity to buy your way out of a conviction, but one need only sit in any District Courtroom to see that isn’t the case. Those with money to hire the right attorneys, to delay, obfuscate or otherwise work the system have the ability to affect the outcome of their charges in ways that the poor and powerless do not. While I don’t agree with “no tolerance” policies, there shouldn’t be the range of discrepancies that currently exist.
The cost to the individual of participating in programs involving any level of monitoring need to take into account the cost to society of not undertaking that monitoring, warts and all.
Finally, I want to thank Mr. Stahl for taking the time to respond and present his point of view, rather than simply writing me off as another curmudgeon with a keyboard and an opinion. I wish more people would disagree with me (well, maybe not those with whom I live) so that I’d have a chance to engage in civilized discourse that used to be one of the hallmarks of the practice of law.
Arguing and debating with someone who’s on top of their game is a lot like playing tennis with someone who’s just a little better than you. While a victory is extremely sweet, playing the game without keeping score and working up a good sweat can be pretty satisfying as well.
And sometimes, you can get someone to change their mind when you least expect it.
Let me say first that I did find Mr. Stahl’s email address; it wasn’t especially easy to find (I’d never ran across www.ncgov.com before his email, but you can bet it's in my favorites now), but it’s not hard to make an educated guess once you know the format for the agency. His phone number was readily available, and I could have contacted any number of people at the courthouse and probably gotten the address. Having been the administrator whose name appears on the front page of the paper myself, though, I didn’t initially publish it because I figured enough other people would find it and his email box would be flooded already. I’m not completely without compassion for those who work for state or local government; It is included in his response only because of his permission, which I appreciate.
After reading the rebuttal, I see that the decision not to use ankle bracelets to detect alcohol use wasn’t an arbitrary decision by a bureaucrat ran amok as I first maintained but rather was made after some research occurred – research that the media didn’t bother to discuss in much detail. If I were in court arguing on behalf of a client, I’d be making a great many of the points that Mr. Stahl has made in his letter about why my client shouldn't be subjected to this intrusion into his or her life.
It’s different to be advocating for a position, though – something that my clients expect and my profession requires – and being “Joe Citizen” who is appalled at the number of lives ruined by drunk drivers and the failures of the system to deal with repeat offenders. My job in the courtroom is to play by the rules that exist, but as a private citizen I can argue for a change in those laws.
I’d also point out that my own liberal ideology leads me to object to any intrusion on individual liberties or freedoms, and I seldom think that those intrusions are a fair trade for the rights that are diminished. If those who want to restrict our liberty are not continually beat back, we’ll soon have no liberty left. That being said, though, the approach to dealing with repeat DUI offenders is inflicting terrible harm on our society, and something needs to change.
What is apparent is that there is a lot of blame to go around for the failures in the systems that handle the problem of drunk drivers.
People are not responsible in their actions.
The legislature fails to appropriate sufficient funds to adequately address the problem.
Programs and solutions are fractured across a variety of state agencies, many with competing goals and interests, so that they are in effect undermining one another.
As an attorney, I’ve seen that regardless of what restrictions the judge imposes, many probation officers feel it is their function to see that those under their supervision violate the terms of their probation and eventually go to jail. This isn’t how the system is supposed to work, but the power trip that goes with being able to control virtually every aspect of someone’s life is a powerful drug and is a reality that those involved in the criminal court system face every day. The game of "gotcha" is one that never seems to get boring for some people.
The one aspect I will address about the use of these devices is the cost. I don’t think that the argument about the cost to the individual is especially relevant, because we do other things that have financially devastating impacts on offenders and their families and I have a hard time seeing the difference.
For example, in some circumstances you are required to have an ignition interlock device (i.e. “blow-n-go”) installed on your vehicle. This costs $70.00 to install, plus there’s a monthly monitoring fee of $60.00 during the use of the equipment (usually 12 months). This is paid to Monitech, the private company that is the only approved provider in North Carolina.
The argument for differentiating between the blow-n-go and the ankle bracelet is that driving is a “privilege”, as opposed to merely existing, which is a “right.” I’d submit that this is slicing the onion a bit thinly.
Anyone who lives in a place that doesn’t offer reasonable public transportation can hardly survive without the ability to drive. As a result, once they can’t drive they lose their jobs, which often leads to losing their home and any number of other problems. When faced with those choices, many, many offenders chose to drive despite the restrictions. In reality, driving isn’t much more of a privilege than existing is. In a perfect society that offered alternative transportation that wouldn’t be the case; that’s not the world that we live in, though, at least in North Carolina.
What I do agree with is that the alternative shouldn’t be “jail or the ankle bracelet.” There shouldn’t be the opportunity to buy your way out of a conviction, but one need only sit in any District Courtroom to see that isn’t the case. Those with money to hire the right attorneys, to delay, obfuscate or otherwise work the system have the ability to affect the outcome of their charges in ways that the poor and powerless do not. While I don’t agree with “no tolerance” policies, there shouldn’t be the range of discrepancies that currently exist.
The cost to the individual of participating in programs involving any level of monitoring need to take into account the cost to society of not undertaking that monitoring, warts and all.
Finally, I want to thank Mr. Stahl for taking the time to respond and present his point of view, rather than simply writing me off as another curmudgeon with a keyboard and an opinion. I wish more people would disagree with me (well, maybe not those with whom I live) so that I’d have a chance to engage in civilized discourse that used to be one of the hallmarks of the practice of law.
Arguing and debating with someone who’s on top of their game is a lot like playing tennis with someone who’s just a little better than you. While a victory is extremely sweet, playing the game without keeping score and working up a good sweat can be pretty satisfying as well.
And sometimes, you can get someone to change their mind when you least expect it.
Why North Carolina doesn't use Ankle Bracelets for DWI Offenders
(Note - I've not changed any of the content here, although I did have to alter the formatting a bit to overcome the internet gremlins that seem to invade every time a document goes from one format to another)
Larry,
I don't know why you had problems finding my email address - www.ncgov.com is the state government portal that includes a state employee directory that provides both email addresses and telephone numbers for most state employees and I am in that directory. You could have also found my phone number on the Judicial Department website and called and I would have given you the email address.
Anyway, it is Gregg.C.Stahl@aoc.nccourts.org Feel free to post it.
Here is a summary (some is updated due to research since 2007) of why I recommended in 2007 to the Drug Treatment Court Advisory Committee that SCRAM not be used by Drug Treatment Courts. The advisory committee is made up of judges, DOC officials, treatment providers and others with knowledge about drug and alcohol abuse among offenders. They made the decision, not me. The representative from the Mecklenburg courts present at the meeting never spoke.
This is also the information I gave to Ames Alexander, the Charlotte Observer reporter who wrote the story - some during our multiple telephone discussions and others in email.
This is a complex issue and the 60 day limit needs to be separated from the Drug Treatment Court issue. Following is a description of both.
The 60 day limit is specific by law to DWI offenders and allows the judge to use CAM for up to 60 days or a cost to not exceed $1,000 to mitigate the active prison sentence for an offender.
So in the case of the offender in Gaston County, SCRAM was used instead of sending him to prison. He also received a shortened active probation sentence so when the fatal crash occurred he was not under an active supervision despite the fact he had pled guilty to 2 DWIs (one level 1 and one level 2), had a previous DWI conviction, had waited 16 months from the date of the last offense to plead guilty and was less than a year from that court sentencing date. So, using SCRAM allowed a repeat DWI offender to get a lesser sentence then he would have otherwise. There is no evidence that the offender was in treatment at the same time he wore the bracelet for the 60 days (even took SCRAM 60 days from his conviction date to hook him up) and I speculate that the offender had already been through treatment in the 16 months prior to his going to court.
Drug Treatment Courts (DTC) target offenders are those who are convicted and sentenced to an intermediate or community punishment under Structured Sentencing - which does not include DWI as DWI is still an old law offense. Thus, the vast majority of offenders in Drug Treatment Court are there for addictions to drugs other than alcohol and thus continuous monitoring for alcohol use is not necessary. Also, only 32% of those in DTC ever graduate. The other 68% fail to complete the program but only 4% of those failures are logged as being for positive drug tests. I think this means the programs routinely overlook positive tests as relapse is often a part of drug and alcohol treatment.
Only Mecklenburg has large numbers of DWI in their two county funded DWI courts. Mecklenburg ran a pilot program using SCRAM paid for from a local ABC grant. In order to have a purpose for the monitoring (punishment or treatment aid) the DWI court staff was asked to develop a program design and decided to use the devices to monitor offenders who were not complying with the rules of the program and in which there were indications from treatment or probation that they were drinking. The monitoring was to be used as an increased punishment with adult probation participating in the pilot through an agreement for them to install the bracelets. However, for whatever reason the court did not follow it own program design but instead opted to put the device on everyone for 30 days who came into the court. The pilot ended when the grant money that paid for both the equipment and the daily monitoring ran out. The AOC negotiated a $5 per day monitoring rate in lieu of the normal $12 daily rate. Monies to continue the program were never allocated or appropriated and an independent process evaluation noted that courts didn't follow their program design and the local court staff did not agree on the benefits of the monitoring.
Finally, here's the summary of why I don't think SCRAM should be a client pay based punishment or used in Drug Treatment Courts:
• Continuous monitoring for alcohol does not stop someone from driving - cannot be marketed as a "life saving device"
• Continuous monitoring is not real time reporting
• Those on probation for alcohol related offenses are already routinely tested for alcohol use
• The theory behind continuous monitoring is one of general deterrence - risk of getting caught deters individual from participating in restricted activity - however, that is particularly difficult for addicts
• Other more reliable methods are available that physically prevent use and abuse (Anitbuse, Soboxone and Vivitrol) - which is specific deterrence
• Since CAM is alcohol specific, offender could switch to another drug that would go undetected unless ordered for other drug testing
• Continuous monitoring without treatment is a punishment - restriction of liberty - that usually mitigates a statutory jail or prison sentence and more often than not in non DWI cases the judgment doesn't include condition to not drink (DWI statute prohibits drinking) and thus drinking violations are unenforceable
• Monitoring for alcohol and drug use is the responsibility of adult probation officers when the individual is on probation and the method of doing so should be left to their discretion.
• Continuous monitoring with treatment isn't necessary - treatment professionals haven't endorsed the use and treatment professionals employ other methods of detecting use and understand relapse is often part of the treatment regime
• Judges shouldn't be ordering specific treatment regimes but leave that up to treatment professionals
• Client pay to vendor models are not used in criminal cases for any other punishment and is especially problematic in the case of offender indigence - either offender gets harsher punishment (active sentence) or is denied potential benefits of monitoring - problems with non payment claims - problems with payment to vendor in lieu of payment for other costs associated with case like attorney fees, court fees and supervision fees - if adopted CAM should be a state administered contract
• Case for use argues cost of $12 per day is cheaper than jail or prison - indicating a mitigation of sentence only afforded to those with means leading to unequal justice - and isn't an accurate argument in that real immediate cost savings for community punishment in lieu of jail time is only the cost of food and any medical costs as all other costs associated with the operation of a jail or prison are fixed
• Monitoring information requires $30 per month telephone line in addition to daily cost - land lines not in use by many
• Monitoring information often reviewed by individuals not fully trained to distinguish drinking episodes from false positives (sales staff and probation officers)
• Most studies citing success of the SCRAM device were paid for by parent company for SCRAM
• National Center for State Courts study (paid for by parent company) horrendously flawed and was based upon unverified data - conclusion not based upon actual case study
• Only study not paid for parent company (2007) found device fraught with false negatives problems (only detected known drinking incidents 57% of the time) and found decreased accuracy over time thus negating the benefits of longer use
• Reliance on device may lead to traditional forms of monitoring to be abandoned
• Endorsement by National Association of Drug Court Professionals - parent company of SCRAM is a $25,000 corporate sponsor of the association - NCMADD has also endorsed the product and the NC SCRAM vendor is a corporate sponsor
• North Carolina Association of County Commissioners was approached by local SCRAM vendor with an offer for a paid endorsement
• Durham district court judge banned SCRAM sales staff from courtroom after hearing salesman offering lower sentences to anyone with a DWI - was especially problematic for Hispanic defendants who thought salesman was an attorney
• Drug Courts do not take DWI offenders as part of their target population - most of those who indicated they used alcohol as drug of choice are more than likely in the Mecklenburg DWI courts which are not state funded
• Mecklenburg DTCs ran a grant funded pilot program using SCRAM and failed to follow their own protocol and thus the evaluation of the effectiveness as a sanction couldn't be determined - DTC staff in Mecklenburg could not agree on the usefulness of the device
• Other low tech and higher tech alternatives available which are cheaper - urinalysis is $5 per test and state paid - GPS alcohol/drug monitoring device now on market is $8 per day - Interlock is $2.50 per day
Obviously, not all of this was included in Ames' story - but he did get it all.
I hope you can conclude that this issue is well beyond personalities and a "bureaucrat run amok". As a state employee I feel it is my job to ensure that court programs and policy look at both the intended and unintended consequences before adoption. The purpose of and need for CAM needs to be decided and if it is to be a punishment then adult probation should oversee it and monies should be appropriated by the General Assembly for the Department of Correction to purchase the equipment and services. This is how the electronic monitoring, drug testing and GPS monitoring programs were implemented.
I did read several of your earlier blogs and enjoyed them all – all but this one.
Take care,
Gregg Stahl
Senior Deputy Director
Administrative Office of the Courts
919 890-1392
Larry,
I don't know why you had problems finding my email address - www.ncgov.com is the state government portal that includes a state employee directory that provides both email addresses and telephone numbers for most state employees and I am in that directory. You could have also found my phone number on the Judicial Department website and called and I would have given you the email address.
Anyway, it is Gregg.C.Stahl@aoc.nccourts.org Feel free to post it.
Here is a summary (some is updated due to research since 2007) of why I recommended in 2007 to the Drug Treatment Court Advisory Committee that SCRAM not be used by Drug Treatment Courts. The advisory committee is made up of judges, DOC officials, treatment providers and others with knowledge about drug and alcohol abuse among offenders. They made the decision, not me. The representative from the Mecklenburg courts present at the meeting never spoke.
This is also the information I gave to Ames Alexander, the Charlotte Observer reporter who wrote the story - some during our multiple telephone discussions and others in email.
This is a complex issue and the 60 day limit needs to be separated from the Drug Treatment Court issue. Following is a description of both.
The 60 day limit is specific by law to DWI offenders and allows the judge to use CAM for up to 60 days or a cost to not exceed $1,000 to mitigate the active prison sentence for an offender.
So in the case of the offender in Gaston County, SCRAM was used instead of sending him to prison. He also received a shortened active probation sentence so when the fatal crash occurred he was not under an active supervision despite the fact he had pled guilty to 2 DWIs (one level 1 and one level 2), had a previous DWI conviction, had waited 16 months from the date of the last offense to plead guilty and was less than a year from that court sentencing date. So, using SCRAM allowed a repeat DWI offender to get a lesser sentence then he would have otherwise. There is no evidence that the offender was in treatment at the same time he wore the bracelet for the 60 days (even took SCRAM 60 days from his conviction date to hook him up) and I speculate that the offender had already been through treatment in the 16 months prior to his going to court.
Drug Treatment Courts (DTC) target offenders are those who are convicted and sentenced to an intermediate or community punishment under Structured Sentencing - which does not include DWI as DWI is still an old law offense. Thus, the vast majority of offenders in Drug Treatment Court are there for addictions to drugs other than alcohol and thus continuous monitoring for alcohol use is not necessary. Also, only 32% of those in DTC ever graduate. The other 68% fail to complete the program but only 4% of those failures are logged as being for positive drug tests. I think this means the programs routinely overlook positive tests as relapse is often a part of drug and alcohol treatment.
Only Mecklenburg has large numbers of DWI in their two county funded DWI courts. Mecklenburg ran a pilot program using SCRAM paid for from a local ABC grant. In order to have a purpose for the monitoring (punishment or treatment aid) the DWI court staff was asked to develop a program design and decided to use the devices to monitor offenders who were not complying with the rules of the program and in which there were indications from treatment or probation that they were drinking. The monitoring was to be used as an increased punishment with adult probation participating in the pilot through an agreement for them to install the bracelets. However, for whatever reason the court did not follow it own program design but instead opted to put the device on everyone for 30 days who came into the court. The pilot ended when the grant money that paid for both the equipment and the daily monitoring ran out. The AOC negotiated a $5 per day monitoring rate in lieu of the normal $12 daily rate. Monies to continue the program were never allocated or appropriated and an independent process evaluation noted that courts didn't follow their program design and the local court staff did not agree on the benefits of the monitoring.
Finally, here's the summary of why I don't think SCRAM should be a client pay based punishment or used in Drug Treatment Courts:
• Continuous monitoring for alcohol does not stop someone from driving - cannot be marketed as a "life saving device"
• Continuous monitoring is not real time reporting
• Those on probation for alcohol related offenses are already routinely tested for alcohol use
• The theory behind continuous monitoring is one of general deterrence - risk of getting caught deters individual from participating in restricted activity - however, that is particularly difficult for addicts
• Other more reliable methods are available that physically prevent use and abuse (Anitbuse, Soboxone and Vivitrol) - which is specific deterrence
• Since CAM is alcohol specific, offender could switch to another drug that would go undetected unless ordered for other drug testing
• Continuous monitoring without treatment is a punishment - restriction of liberty - that usually mitigates a statutory jail or prison sentence and more often than not in non DWI cases the judgment doesn't include condition to not drink (DWI statute prohibits drinking) and thus drinking violations are unenforceable
• Monitoring for alcohol and drug use is the responsibility of adult probation officers when the individual is on probation and the method of doing so should be left to their discretion.
• Continuous monitoring with treatment isn't necessary - treatment professionals haven't endorsed the use and treatment professionals employ other methods of detecting use and understand relapse is often part of the treatment regime
• Judges shouldn't be ordering specific treatment regimes but leave that up to treatment professionals
• Client pay to vendor models are not used in criminal cases for any other punishment and is especially problematic in the case of offender indigence - either offender gets harsher punishment (active sentence) or is denied potential benefits of monitoring - problems with non payment claims - problems with payment to vendor in lieu of payment for other costs associated with case like attorney fees, court fees and supervision fees - if adopted CAM should be a state administered contract
• Case for use argues cost of $12 per day is cheaper than jail or prison - indicating a mitigation of sentence only afforded to those with means leading to unequal justice - and isn't an accurate argument in that real immediate cost savings for community punishment in lieu of jail time is only the cost of food and any medical costs as all other costs associated with the operation of a jail or prison are fixed
• Monitoring information requires $30 per month telephone line in addition to daily cost - land lines not in use by many
• Monitoring information often reviewed by individuals not fully trained to distinguish drinking episodes from false positives (sales staff and probation officers)
• Most studies citing success of the SCRAM device were paid for by parent company for SCRAM
• National Center for State Courts study (paid for by parent company) horrendously flawed and was based upon unverified data - conclusion not based upon actual case study
• Only study not paid for parent company (2007) found device fraught with false negatives problems (only detected known drinking incidents 57% of the time) and found decreased accuracy over time thus negating the benefits of longer use
• Reliance on device may lead to traditional forms of monitoring to be abandoned
• Endorsement by National Association of Drug Court Professionals - parent company of SCRAM is a $25,000 corporate sponsor of the association - NCMADD has also endorsed the product and the NC SCRAM vendor is a corporate sponsor
• North Carolina Association of County Commissioners was approached by local SCRAM vendor with an offer for a paid endorsement
• Durham district court judge banned SCRAM sales staff from courtroom after hearing salesman offering lower sentences to anyone with a DWI - was especially problematic for Hispanic defendants who thought salesman was an attorney
• Drug Courts do not take DWI offenders as part of their target population - most of those who indicated they used alcohol as drug of choice are more than likely in the Mecklenburg DWI courts which are not state funded
• Mecklenburg DTCs ran a grant funded pilot program using SCRAM and failed to follow their own protocol and thus the evaluation of the effectiveness as a sanction couldn't be determined - DTC staff in Mecklenburg could not agree on the usefulness of the device
• Other low tech and higher tech alternatives available which are cheaper - urinalysis is $5 per test and state paid - GPS alcohol/drug monitoring device now on market is $8 per day - Interlock is $2.50 per day
Obviously, not all of this was included in Ames' story - but he did get it all.
I hope you can conclude that this issue is well beyond personalities and a "bureaucrat run amok". As a state employee I feel it is my job to ensure that court programs and policy look at both the intended and unintended consequences before adoption. The purpose of and need for CAM needs to be decided and if it is to be a punishment then adult probation should oversee it and monies should be appropriated by the General Assembly for the Department of Correction to purchase the equipment and services. This is how the electronic monitoring, drug testing and GPS monitoring programs were implemented.
I did read several of your earlier blogs and enjoyed them all – all but this one.
Take care,
Gregg Stahl
Senior Deputy Director
Administrative Office of the Courts
919 890-1392
More about the Bling
So I’m here today with egg on my face. Usually when that happens, it’s not just egg, but a side of bacon and a biscuit covered with sausage gravy, completing the heart attack special.
Last Friday, I committed a fundamental error when I should have known better. I relied on a newspaper article as the primary source of information.
After all the years that I, myself, was a bureaucrat, I should have remembered that their job (especially on the front page) is to sell newspapers and not necessarily to provide the whole truth.
The issue in question involved the use of ankle bracelets that monitor alcohol use by convicted DWI offenders. North Carolina is the only state that doesn’t use them, and in the article ran by the Charlotte Observer that appeared to be primarily the result of the actions of Gregg Stahl, the Deputy Director of the Administrative Office of the Courts.
Mr. Stahl saw my post and sent me an email. He had tried to respond in the comments but was precluded due to the length of his response, so in the interest of fairness I’ll put it here, and then I’ll comment again afterwards.
Last Friday, I committed a fundamental error when I should have known better. I relied on a newspaper article as the primary source of information.
After all the years that I, myself, was a bureaucrat, I should have remembered that their job (especially on the front page) is to sell newspapers and not necessarily to provide the whole truth.
The issue in question involved the use of ankle bracelets that monitor alcohol use by convicted DWI offenders. North Carolina is the only state that doesn’t use them, and in the article ran by the Charlotte Observer that appeared to be primarily the result of the actions of Gregg Stahl, the Deputy Director of the Administrative Office of the Courts.
Mr. Stahl saw my post and sent me an email. He had tried to respond in the comments but was precluded due to the length of his response, so in the interest of fairness I’ll put it here, and then I’ll comment again afterwards.
Friday, August 13, 2010
Bureaucrats and Ankle Bracelets
Sometimes, stupidity exists to the point that someone has to say “enough.” There needs to be a collective “DUH!” addressed to the perpetrator, and those who have authority over him or her, and an immediate change needs to occur.
For some strange reason, these situations tend to happen in a government setting more than others. One recent one involves the rampant number of injuries and deaths that occur as a result of driving while either under the influence or impaired by alcohol.
I think it’s a given that people have been driving drunk as long as they’ve been driving. Back when there was a horse or a mule involved, at least one of the mammals involved usually had enough common sense to keep it between the ditches. Since the advent of the automobile, however, that’s no longer true.
There have been lots of attempts to address the problem. Separate courts have been set up to deal with offenders. All kinds of treatment programs have been tried with varying degrees of success. Other countries have gone a bit more draconian where sentences of offenders involve hard labor, life imprisonment or the death penalty.
Harsh, but there’s not much recidivism.
We can’t seem to get a handle on it in the US, but there’s one nifty little tool that came along a few years ago that is universally hailed as a great thing – except in North Carolina, where it’s banned.
It’s this stylish little piece of jewelry that attaches to a person’s ankle. It automatically reads their perspiration to tell whether or not they’ve been drinking, then the information is uploaded daily to a computer and reported to a person’s parole officer.
Pretty neat, huh? One of the conditions of most sentences for DUI (Driving Under the Influence) or DWI (Driving While Impaired) is that the defendant not drink during the period of probation. This tells if they’ve been breaking the rules and is cheap to monitor since the information goes over the internet and is automatic.
Makes sense, right? After all, these people have shown at least a lapse in judgment that endangers not only themselves but the public at large. At worst, they have a severe substance abuse problem they can’t control without some pretty hefty coercion.
Why can’t we use it here? Because ONE BUREAUCRAT at the state level decided he didn’t like the company’s sales tactics.
It seems the company that developed these gizmos did what any other company hoping to grow their market would do; they sent out sales reps into the market. In this particular case, the market happened to be the courthouses, talking to judges and the people that would actually sentence these people, and the company got the permission of the Chief Justice of the NC Supreme Court before they contacted anyone.
This apparently stepped on the turf of the Senior Deputy Director of the North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC). One has to wonder how insecure this person is to have gotten his boxers wadded tightly enough to deny the entire State of North Carolina the opportunity to use this tool, just because someone affronted the dignity of his person and office.
So in 2007 he wrote a two page memo that challenged the technology used and prohibited the use of this little device. He doesn’t seem to have any special qualifications that would let him challenge the technology, though. He just didn't like it.
He was joined by the (then) head of the North Carolina State Probation System, whose turf was also apparently encroached, so he wrote a marginally-literate email in 2006 that essentially said he wouldn’t cooperate. That person was eventually given the opportunity to retire or be fired once the Governor discovered that he’d been slacking off in his duties and not monitoring probationers for years. He’s now hopefully enjoying activities in his retirement that require neither accurate spelling nor sentence structure.
49 other states have approved the use of ankle bracelets, finding the technology adequate and the tools useful. North Carolina stands alone in opposition.
If you sift through the news reports in today’s Charlotte Observer --http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/08/13/1619097/dwi-courts-cant-use-key-tool.html -- you find out that the Senior Deputy Director of the NC Administrative Office of the Courts simply bullied everyone else into giving up on using these. After all, AOC controls money to the counties to operate the court system.
This gadget is a pricey piece of bling. It costs $12.00 a day for monitoring, plus presumably some charge for the do-hickey and clipping it onto the prisoner’s ankle. That’s $372.00 a month, which could well be a substantial chunk of change for some criminals, although one has to wonder if there isn’t a bit of cash freed up because they’re no longer supposed to be buying liquor.
There'd still be money for cigarettes, I bet.
Without going into a deep economic analysis of the cost of injuries sustained by innocent people, time lost from work attending court hearings, physical therapy, and just the general grief suffered when someone you love has to be cut out of their car by rescuers, a trip out for a gallon of milk turned disastrous by someone who has overindulged, I’m still betting that this is far, far less than the cost of keeping that person in jail.
If the rest of the economy would have a return on investment of even half that, we'd no longer be in a Recession.
Let's remember too that this is punishment! It’s supposed to hurt! There’s a two-fold purpose here. First, to make sure that this person isn’t boozing it up because they’ve shown they have a problem and as a result, they cannot use any alcohol during the period of their sentence in hopes that they’ll either learn to control it or will get over the addiction.
The argument about it costing too much is ridiculous, anyhow, because the Courts routinely do things to defendants that are financially devastating. Vehicles (including cars, jet skis, airplanes and any number of other conveyances) are seized and sold if you’re driving under the influence and it’s not the first time you’ve been caught. If you use a house to manufacture drugs, that can be seized and sold.
If you have to have a “blow-n-go” (i.e. “Ignition interlock device”) installed on your car because you were caught driving with too much alcohol in your blood, you’re going to pay close to a grand to get it put in and then a monthly fee to have it monitored and the information uploaded to the probation folks.
To even consider the cost to the defendant is ludicrous. The state ought to pick up the cost up front, use the monitors and then make that one of the costs that the defendants have to reimburse, just like their fines, parole fees and other charges. They do it all the time; this is a no-brainer for most of us, from a fiscal perspective.
The other argument, apparently, is that the ankle bracelet won’t immediately stop someone from driving drunk. Now, the alternative – what they have used for years and what they still use – is to have probation officers go find the defendants and randomly make them blow into a breathalyzer a few times a week.
How hard you think it is to game that system??
If there were ever an example of a bureaucrat run amok, this is it. My hope is that the Director of the NC Administrative Office of Courts has simply been asleep at the wheel for a few years and will be having a “come to Jesus” meeting with the Senior Deputy Director this morning after he reads the paper. I'd put email addresses here for both of them so anyone could offer an opinion, but they've conveniently hidden those on the website so they're not readily available.
Alcohol abuse, and especially drunk driving is a major problem in our country. It needs to be addressed. To refuse to implement a very useful and valid tool, even if it’s not perfect, just because some muckety-muck got offended at how it was marketed is ludicrous.
We deserve better from our government administrators.
For some strange reason, these situations tend to happen in a government setting more than others. One recent one involves the rampant number of injuries and deaths that occur as a result of driving while either under the influence or impaired by alcohol.
I think it’s a given that people have been driving drunk as long as they’ve been driving. Back when there was a horse or a mule involved, at least one of the mammals involved usually had enough common sense to keep it between the ditches. Since the advent of the automobile, however, that’s no longer true.
There have been lots of attempts to address the problem. Separate courts have been set up to deal with offenders. All kinds of treatment programs have been tried with varying degrees of success. Other countries have gone a bit more draconian where sentences of offenders involve hard labor, life imprisonment or the death penalty.
Harsh, but there’s not much recidivism.
We can’t seem to get a handle on it in the US, but there’s one nifty little tool that came along a few years ago that is universally hailed as a great thing – except in North Carolina, where it’s banned.
It’s this stylish little piece of jewelry that attaches to a person’s ankle. It automatically reads their perspiration to tell whether or not they’ve been drinking, then the information is uploaded daily to a computer and reported to a person’s parole officer.
Pretty neat, huh? One of the conditions of most sentences for DUI (Driving Under the Influence) or DWI (Driving While Impaired) is that the defendant not drink during the period of probation. This tells if they’ve been breaking the rules and is cheap to monitor since the information goes over the internet and is automatic.
Makes sense, right? After all, these people have shown at least a lapse in judgment that endangers not only themselves but the public at large. At worst, they have a severe substance abuse problem they can’t control without some pretty hefty coercion.
Why can’t we use it here? Because ONE BUREAUCRAT at the state level decided he didn’t like the company’s sales tactics.
It seems the company that developed these gizmos did what any other company hoping to grow their market would do; they sent out sales reps into the market. In this particular case, the market happened to be the courthouses, talking to judges and the people that would actually sentence these people, and the company got the permission of the Chief Justice of the NC Supreme Court before they contacted anyone.
This apparently stepped on the turf of the Senior Deputy Director of the North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC). One has to wonder how insecure this person is to have gotten his boxers wadded tightly enough to deny the entire State of North Carolina the opportunity to use this tool, just because someone affronted the dignity of his person and office.
So in 2007 he wrote a two page memo that challenged the technology used and prohibited the use of this little device. He doesn’t seem to have any special qualifications that would let him challenge the technology, though. He just didn't like it.
He was joined by the (then) head of the North Carolina State Probation System, whose turf was also apparently encroached, so he wrote a marginally-literate email in 2006 that essentially said he wouldn’t cooperate. That person was eventually given the opportunity to retire or be fired once the Governor discovered that he’d been slacking off in his duties and not monitoring probationers for years. He’s now hopefully enjoying activities in his retirement that require neither accurate spelling nor sentence structure.
49 other states have approved the use of ankle bracelets, finding the technology adequate and the tools useful. North Carolina stands alone in opposition.
If you sift through the news reports in today’s Charlotte Observer --http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/08/13/1619097/dwi-courts-cant-use-key-tool.html -- you find out that the Senior Deputy Director of the NC Administrative Office of the Courts simply bullied everyone else into giving up on using these. After all, AOC controls money to the counties to operate the court system.
This gadget is a pricey piece of bling. It costs $12.00 a day for monitoring, plus presumably some charge for the do-hickey and clipping it onto the prisoner’s ankle. That’s $372.00 a month, which could well be a substantial chunk of change for some criminals, although one has to wonder if there isn’t a bit of cash freed up because they’re no longer supposed to be buying liquor.
There'd still be money for cigarettes, I bet.
Without going into a deep economic analysis of the cost of injuries sustained by innocent people, time lost from work attending court hearings, physical therapy, and just the general grief suffered when someone you love has to be cut out of their car by rescuers, a trip out for a gallon of milk turned disastrous by someone who has overindulged, I’m still betting that this is far, far less than the cost of keeping that person in jail.
If the rest of the economy would have a return on investment of even half that, we'd no longer be in a Recession.
Let's remember too that this is punishment! It’s supposed to hurt! There’s a two-fold purpose here. First, to make sure that this person isn’t boozing it up because they’ve shown they have a problem and as a result, they cannot use any alcohol during the period of their sentence in hopes that they’ll either learn to control it or will get over the addiction.
The argument about it costing too much is ridiculous, anyhow, because the Courts routinely do things to defendants that are financially devastating. Vehicles (including cars, jet skis, airplanes and any number of other conveyances) are seized and sold if you’re driving under the influence and it’s not the first time you’ve been caught. If you use a house to manufacture drugs, that can be seized and sold.
If you have to have a “blow-n-go” (i.e. “Ignition interlock device”) installed on your car because you were caught driving with too much alcohol in your blood, you’re going to pay close to a grand to get it put in and then a monthly fee to have it monitored and the information uploaded to the probation folks.
To even consider the cost to the defendant is ludicrous. The state ought to pick up the cost up front, use the monitors and then make that one of the costs that the defendants have to reimburse, just like their fines, parole fees and other charges. They do it all the time; this is a no-brainer for most of us, from a fiscal perspective.
The other argument, apparently, is that the ankle bracelet won’t immediately stop someone from driving drunk. Now, the alternative – what they have used for years and what they still use – is to have probation officers go find the defendants and randomly make them blow into a breathalyzer a few times a week.
How hard you think it is to game that system??
If there were ever an example of a bureaucrat run amok, this is it. My hope is that the Director of the NC Administrative Office of Courts has simply been asleep at the wheel for a few years and will be having a “come to Jesus” meeting with the Senior Deputy Director this morning after he reads the paper. I'd put email addresses here for both of them so anyone could offer an opinion, but they've conveniently hidden those on the website so they're not readily available.
Alcohol abuse, and especially drunk driving is a major problem in our country. It needs to be addressed. To refuse to implement a very useful and valid tool, even if it’s not perfect, just because some muckety-muck got offended at how it was marketed is ludicrous.
We deserve better from our government administrators.
Friday, August 6, 2010
Quirks of the Keyboard
It’s been a busy couple of weeks, and although I’ve spent hours sitting at the computer it’s been writing the stuff that’s dull to the rest of the world but of immense importance to the people directly involved.
Court pleadings. Contracts. Settlement Agreements.
Lawyers know these things are dry. It can’t be helped; some things are just hard to make exciting.
Look at the chapter with all the “begats” in the Bible. Few pastors have been able to squeeze a sermon out of that.
It’d be like trying to get a logical story out of the instructions to program your VCR. Once they’ve been translated through 4 languages, they start to lose a little something, not to mention becoming pretty dry.
So it’s not necessarily been “fun” writing. Judges seldom appreciate humor slipped into a pleading and you have to fight it past opposing counsel as well. Most of the time, a pun is simply not worth the effort.
All this time at the keyboard made me think back to one of my junior high teachers, Geraldine Phelps.
Mrs. Phelps taught typing.
Not “keyboarding”, which was unheard of, but plain old, “Take a letter, Miss Jane” typing on cast iron metal machines, where the bell rang at the end of each row and you had to pick up your hand and throw the return back to advance the paper. There was only one electric typewriter in the room, and everyone circulated through it. You might have used it at most two or three times during the year.
Mrs. Phelps was a very genteel lady. She was at the end of her career, and I was in her very last class ever.
She was determined to see that we all came out with little pins showing we were perfectly proficient typists.
My pin came with a certificate proving that, at least on one day in the 9th grade, I could type 86 words a minute for five minutes without a single error.
I've slacked off a bit since then.
For those who’ve never typed on an old style typewriter, you need to know that the only thing that imprints the letter on the paper is the strength of your finger making the lever move and hit the ribbon.
The one guaranteed to get black all over your hands and clothes whenever it had to be changed.
If you go too fast, the keys get all tangled together and you have to stop, so you have to balance how fast you can go with the machine’s failure rate.
It’s one of the reasons that keyboards are arranged the way they are; most people and machines would top out at about 100 words a minute, max. If we’d change the keyboards people could type faster with computers, but who’s going to learn how to type again?
On those old manual machines, if you’re working up a head of steam you are putting a lot of force out there. You wouldn’t think that typing would cause you to work up a sweat, but it could.
It also means that you had very strong fingers and wrists, as Mrs. Phelps proved when one boy uttered a coarse word in her class and, having reached the end of her patience, she removed him from his chair by the ear and lead him out into the hallway to discuss the matter.
Size is sometimes not determinate of strength. Although I don’t remember her as being especially tall, she had the reach to keep him on tip-toe for the short walk out.
When retirement is within sight, we sometimes become more fearless in our actions.
I was fortunate in that I got to be friends with Mrs. Phelps after I was grown. Her sisters lived in the little town I moved to, and we crossed paths several times a year when she came to visit. I had a chance to thank her for teaching me, unlike so many other great teachers I had.
Aside from the fact that I still prefer to type rather than handwrite anything, especially with the invention of laptop computers that will go anywhere, there are other repercussions of Mrs. Phelps training.
I still slam my wrists and fingers down when typing, meaning that I go through a lot of keyboards. Sometimes 2 or 3 a year. I also stop to correct errors, rather than waiting for spell check to take care of it at the end of the document.
But every morning when I sit down at my computer, I send a little thanks to her in the great beyond.
We never know how the little things we do, the everyday “just doing my jobs” will impact someone we never think about. It doesn’t have to be something big; it probably doesn’t matter much to anyone other than me whether I can type or not, but it makes my life easier most every day.
And after all these years, I still smile when I think about this nice lady and suspect that, wherever she is, she's sitting up straight in her chair, the keyboard adjusted to keep her arms straight at the elbows and her feet slightly back and crossed at the ankle, as she rolls a sheet of paper into her Remington Typewriter to begin the day.
Court pleadings. Contracts. Settlement Agreements.
Lawyers know these things are dry. It can’t be helped; some things are just hard to make exciting.
Look at the chapter with all the “begats” in the Bible. Few pastors have been able to squeeze a sermon out of that.
It’d be like trying to get a logical story out of the instructions to program your VCR. Once they’ve been translated through 4 languages, they start to lose a little something, not to mention becoming pretty dry.
So it’s not necessarily been “fun” writing. Judges seldom appreciate humor slipped into a pleading and you have to fight it past opposing counsel as well. Most of the time, a pun is simply not worth the effort.
All this time at the keyboard made me think back to one of my junior high teachers, Geraldine Phelps.
Mrs. Phelps taught typing.
Not “keyboarding”, which was unheard of, but plain old, “Take a letter, Miss Jane” typing on cast iron metal machines, where the bell rang at the end of each row and you had to pick up your hand and throw the return back to advance the paper. There was only one electric typewriter in the room, and everyone circulated through it. You might have used it at most two or three times during the year.
Mrs. Phelps was a very genteel lady. She was at the end of her career, and I was in her very last class ever.
She was determined to see that we all came out with little pins showing we were perfectly proficient typists.
My pin came with a certificate proving that, at least on one day in the 9th grade, I could type 86 words a minute for five minutes without a single error.
I've slacked off a bit since then.
For those who’ve never typed on an old style typewriter, you need to know that the only thing that imprints the letter on the paper is the strength of your finger making the lever move and hit the ribbon.
The one guaranteed to get black all over your hands and clothes whenever it had to be changed.
If you go too fast, the keys get all tangled together and you have to stop, so you have to balance how fast you can go with the machine’s failure rate.
It’s one of the reasons that keyboards are arranged the way they are; most people and machines would top out at about 100 words a minute, max. If we’d change the keyboards people could type faster with computers, but who’s going to learn how to type again?
On those old manual machines, if you’re working up a head of steam you are putting a lot of force out there. You wouldn’t think that typing would cause you to work up a sweat, but it could.
It also means that you had very strong fingers and wrists, as Mrs. Phelps proved when one boy uttered a coarse word in her class and, having reached the end of her patience, she removed him from his chair by the ear and lead him out into the hallway to discuss the matter.
Size is sometimes not determinate of strength. Although I don’t remember her as being especially tall, she had the reach to keep him on tip-toe for the short walk out.
When retirement is within sight, we sometimes become more fearless in our actions.
I was fortunate in that I got to be friends with Mrs. Phelps after I was grown. Her sisters lived in the little town I moved to, and we crossed paths several times a year when she came to visit. I had a chance to thank her for teaching me, unlike so many other great teachers I had.
Aside from the fact that I still prefer to type rather than handwrite anything, especially with the invention of laptop computers that will go anywhere, there are other repercussions of Mrs. Phelps training.
I still slam my wrists and fingers down when typing, meaning that I go through a lot of keyboards. Sometimes 2 or 3 a year. I also stop to correct errors, rather than waiting for spell check to take care of it at the end of the document.
But every morning when I sit down at my computer, I send a little thanks to her in the great beyond.
We never know how the little things we do, the everyday “just doing my jobs” will impact someone we never think about. It doesn’t have to be something big; it probably doesn’t matter much to anyone other than me whether I can type or not, but it makes my life easier most every day.
And after all these years, I still smile when I think about this nice lady and suspect that, wherever she is, she's sitting up straight in her chair, the keyboard adjusted to keep her arms straight at the elbows and her feet slightly back and crossed at the ankle, as she rolls a sheet of paper into her Remington Typewriter to begin the day.
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