John Grasso: Drug court’s decisions are consistent

Sandra Altshuler’s recent letter to the editor regarding drug court referrals (“Haskell is the barrier,” Sept. 14) contains wild and untrue accusations.

I am a career prosecutor in the Spokane County Prosecutor’s Office, having worked for four prosecuting attorneys over the last 32 years. I supervised the Drug Unit, Property/Fraud Unit, Early Case Resolution Unit (ECR), Drug Court, Mental Health Court and the felony Diversion Unit. I have made tens of thousands of charging and disposition decisions under policies that have remained consistent over the last four prosecuting attorneys, including Larry Haskell.

Altshuler’s assertion that referrals to therapeutic courts dropped under Haskell significantly is false. When Haskell took office, he expanded the criteria for drug court to allow for greater participation, and proposed an additional Drug Court program, which was rejected.

In 2016, Washington State University professor Zachary Hamilton authored a report on Spokane County’s drug court. Dr. Hamilton noted that between 1996 and 2016 there were 550 successful graduates from drug court. Since Haskell took office, drug court offers, each year, routinely exceeded the total number of drug court graduates over the 20 years of the program’s existence. Had these offers been accepted, the capacity of drug court would have been exceeded by hundreds of cases per year. I made the majority of those offers.

Drug court is a yearlong program requiring defendants to attend multiple court hearings, treatment, group sessions and random urinalysis. It is a difficult program with a difficult goal of obtaining a defendant’s sobriety. Everyone wins if a defendant achieves and maintains sobriety.

If a defendant graduates from drug court, the charge is dismissed. If terminated from the program, the defendant is sentenced for the crime charged.

It is important to understand how a case is processed for drug court. First, an offer of drug court is made to a defendant and their attorney. If accepted, that defendant is screened under established guidelines. If the defendant passes the screening, they are referred to drug court for a two-week observation period where they decide if the program is right for them. The defendant can withdraw prior to signing the drug court contract. Drug court is voluntary; defendants cannot be forced to participate.

Why has drug court participation declined? The Early Case Resolution program, promoted by Judge Maryann Moreno to reduce the number of felony cases awaiting trial, requires quick charging and disposition decisions, often with credit for time served.

I was on the record at the time, and still maintain, that ECR would negatively impact drug court participation. It has. The choice is between a quick, definite resolution or a yearlong program with multiple requirements. As expected, defendants choose the quick resolution. The success of ECR has negatively impacted drug court participation.

Altshuler’s statement that prosecutors have received discipline for making referrals to drug curt is false. I never disciplined or referred a prosecutor for discipline for making a drug court referral.

I am unaware of any discipline of a prosecutor for making a drug court referral. Contrary to Altshuler’s assertion, the prosecutor’s office did provide her information regarding drug court referral practices. She acknowledged receiving this information when she wrote in drug court meeting minutes, “John Grasso provided statistics on Prosecuting Attorney’s Drug Court-related activities …” Referral practices were explained and I answered questions from the judge, treatment professionals, the public defender and Altshuler.

Altshuler’s statement that virtually no people of color were referred to drug court after Haskell became prosecutor is completely and maliciously false. Altshuler could not know the race of the defendants who were offered drug court. The only people Altshuler saw in drug court were those defendants who accepted the drug court offer. In my charging and disposition practice, I have always been guided by advice given to me by Don Brockett: “We don’t prosecute character or color because they are not elements of the crime. We prosecute conduct.” This was the policy under Brockett, James Sweetser and Steve Tucker and continues under Haskell and followed by all deputy prosecutors. Any statements to the contrary are reckless and false. I never looked at the race of a defendant when making a charging, drug court referral or disposition decision.

If Altshuler had concerns about racial discrimination while serving as the drug court coordinator, she did not raise those concerns with the drug court team.

John Grasso is the senior deputy prosecuting attorney with the Spokane County Prosecutor’s Office.