Students’ Pleas Heard And Fined

Latah County Magistrate William Hamlett was ready for the traditional aftermath of the semester-opening weekend - a horde of University of Idaho students parading before him on alcohol and other charges.

“There’s nothing you can tell to make me alter my opinion,” Hamlett told the students who again packed his courtroom this week to enter pleas to a variety of crimes for which he has fixed sentences.

But Hamlett had indicated last month that he would have supported a new approach discussed by university and municipal officials to be more lenient.

Issuing warnings, he said, “would be a nice change.”

“Every year it’s the same thing,” Hamlett said. “I simply suggested to the city attorney that it might be nice to try something different. It couldn’t hurt.”

But Moscow police and the university opted to maintain the enforcement level of past years.

“We’re trying to foster an atmosphere where all members of the community, regardless of who they are, conduct themselves in a law-abiding manner,” said Carol Grupp, the university’s risk manager. “It doesn’t take turning your head and looking the other way, but it also doesn’t take the SWAT-team approach.”

So before dozens of defendants passed before him to enter pleas to a variety of offenses during a 90-minute session this week, Hamlett let them know what he expects. The choices are guilty or not guilty, he said, nothing else.

“There’s no such plea as ‘I’m almost guilty,’ ‘Let me tell you my story,’ ‘Let me tell you what happened and you decide,”’ Hamlett said. “The fine is fixed. It will never move.”

First-time misdemeanor drug offenders are fined $298. Underage possession of alcohol carries a $198 fine and loss of driver’s license for 180 days. A first-time drunken driving conviction means an $898 fine and license suspension for 90 to 180 days. Underage smoking carries a fine of $98.

Despite persisting in charging violators rather than warning them, Grupp said authorities are trying to focus on community needs in campus policing.

“It’s not what can I catch you doing but how can I help,” she said.