Tyrone Howard was another nonviolent drug offender who benefited from social justice.
Via KTRE:
Arrested in a 19-person drug sweep, Tyrone Howard was one of only three who got sent to drug court, which offered him treatment instead of prison.
Eight months later, Howard is behind bars on murder charges, accused of putting a bullet in the head of a police officer who was chasing him Tuesday.
Officer Randolph Holder’s slaying has raised questions about the risks and potential shortcomings of drug courts, or drug diversion programs, which have been embraced nationwide as a way to ease jail overcrowding and reduce crime by attacking it at one of its sources: drug abuse.
New York’s mayor and police commissioner have branded Howard a career criminal who had once been arrested in a 2009 gunfight on an East Harlem basketball court and should not have been out on the streets.
“He would have been the last person in New York City I would’ve wanted to see in the diversion program,” Police Commissioner William Bratton said.
Yet the judge who handled the case said Howard – a longtime PCP user who despite his long rap sheet had no convictions for violent crimes – was a compelling candidate for drug court.
“I don’t get a crystal ball when I get the robe,” said state Supreme Court Justice Edward McLaughlin. He defended his decision as “accurate and appropriate,” saying that doing time hadn’t helped Howard before.
He also said he was never made aware of the 2009 shooting case, which records show ultimately wasn’t prosecuted against Howard. A law enforcement official who is familiar with the prosecution of the other defendant in that shooting, and who wasn’t authorized to discuss the case publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, said there was no eyewitness testimony placing Howard as the shooter.
Since their start in Miami in 1989, drug diversion programs have multiplied to 2,500 courts across the country, together handling about 120,000 cases a year, according to the federal National Office of Drug Control Policy.
The agency calls the programs “a proven tool for improving public health and public safety.” President Barack Obama mentioned them approvingly in a July speech, saying such programs can save taxpayer dollars.
Drug courts generally target nonviolent offenders who commit crimes to feed their addictions. The courts use treatment, drug testing, incentives and penalties to try to get defendants sober and straightened out.
“Drug courts are the most effective intervention in the justice system for individuals with substance abuse histories,” Carson Fox, executive director of the National Association of Drug Court Professionals, said Wednesday.