Kendra Goodrick, of Hayden, has sat in a Kootenai County Jail cell for more than a week, a pawn in a game of brinkmanship between 1st District Judge John Mitchell and Prosecutor Bill Douglas’ office.

She’ll likely be sent to a women’s prison in southeastern Idaho for at least six months while she waits to plead her case for release before the Idaho Commission of Pardons and Parole. She admits she did the crime, involving felony meth charges, and she deserves the time. But she also has a good argument that she’s straightened up and become productive in the 18 months after a legal snafu freed her from prison.

She’s drug free. She’s married her boyfriend. She’s given birth to a drug-free baby. She’s gotten a job. She volunteers at the Humane Society.

None of which has made an impression on the prosecutor’s office, which got its wish in court July 19 that she be taken into custody to serve the remainder of a two-year sentence. Goodrick was led from Mitchell’s courtroom in handcuffs by two corrections officers while her 3-month-old son, Jameson, cried. For now, the county has prevailed before an appeals court with its claim that Mitchell exceeded his jurisdiction when he granted probation to the articulate young mother. However, Mitchell bedeviled the prosecutor’s office again the next day when he ruled that Goodrick deserved credit for time served for the 540 days she spent on probation because she was released from prison erroneously.

Goodrick could be eligible for immediate release, if Mitchell’s recent ruling stands. But the prosecutor’s office has served notice that it doesn’t think the judge has the authority to free Goodrick. Nor that she should get credit for time served while she was on probation. It would fight any move to release Goodrick. That would mean she would spend considerable time incarcerated, even if Mitchell’s ruling prevailed.

Mitchell and the prosecutor’s office are at odds over Mitchell’s tendency to give defendants a second chance.

A good case can be made that the justice system has victimized Goodrick twice, by releasing her when she didn’t deserve to be and by imprisoning her now, despite crowded prison conditions and expense, when she’s turned her life around.

The prosecutor’s office has ignored the fact that Mitchell originally intervened in the case, albeit belatedly, when he learned that Goodrick wasn’t getting the drug treatment he’d ordered before sending her to prison. She and her husband, Anthony, both meth addicts at the time, took advantage of her second chance by seeking treatment for both drugs and alcohol.

Goodrick has conquered her addiction to date to such an extent that attorneys, friends and family hold her up as a model probationer.

“We’re taking someone who’s dealing with a problem they haven’t dealt with before and making a remarkable turnaround, and now we’re looking at sending them to prison,” said Chief Deputy Public Defender Lynn Nelson. “It just seems like an awful waste of resources.”

If there were ever a case for compassion and common sense to overrule justice, it’s this one.