With a lawsuit filed against the Alabama Department of Corrections by the U.S. Department of Justice threatening a federal takeover of the state’s prison system, four of Cullman County’s sitting judges shared their thoughts on the current state of the judicial system and the alternative measures that they have implemented to avoid confinement of certain individuals.

During the Chamber of Commerce’s community luncheon on Friday, Feb. 17, Cullman Electric Cooperative Communications Manager Brian Lacy served as moderator to a panel made up of Circuit Judges Greg Nicholas and Martha Williams as well as District Court Judges Rusty Turner and Chad Floyd.

Lacy mentioned an incident currently under investigation by the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency in which an inmate — who according to family members suffered from both mental health issues and drug addiction — died of hypothermia while in the custody of the Walker County Sheriff’s Office on Jan. 26 and asked the panel in what ways have the courts been impacted those suffering from mental illness.

Nicholas took the opportunity to highlight the county’s Mental Health Court he helped launch in July of last year. Nicholas described the court as a collaborative effort between law enforcement officers, healthcare professionals, attorneys and judges with a goal of reducing recidivism rates of those suffering from mental illness. Qualifying individuals charged with what Nicholas described as “lower-level offenses,” are able to undergo a mental health program under the supervision of Wellstone Behavioral Health and appear before a judge on a monthly or bi-weekly basis in lieu of being sentenced to confinement.

Nicholas said that the alternative to this program was “to do nothing.”

“The problem is they’re going to be released and when they are, their underlying situation has not been addressed,” Nicholas said.

When the issue of the current overcrowded prison conditions was brought up, Turner said that community safety outweighed prison conditions when it came time to determine a convicted person’s sentencing.

“Prison overcrowding is not going to be a determining factor,” Turner said. “I don’t think that factors into anybody’s decision. We want to keep Cullman as safe as possible.”

Instead, Turner mentioned a program similar to the Mental Health Court, but designed specifically for veterans who are suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) — which according to Turner can lead to issues like drug abuse and domestic violence.

“A lot of these newer, younger veterans, they got medicine while they were in the Army and then they were just cut off, but they still have issues that they’re dealing with. They’re going to seek treatment of some sort and often times it’s illicit drugs that are available to them,” Turner said.

Floyd said that Drug Court makes similar efforts to rehabilitate those facing non-violent drug charges. He mentioned that since their creation during the late 1980’s drug courts have been extensively studied, and have been proven an effective method of rehabilitation.

“It’s quite binary, you can do one of two things. You either take more tax dollars and build more prisons so you can send everyone to prison, or you can do what works.”

Williams said that she felt that overcrowded prisons had resulted in more restrictions being put into place that allow a judge to use their own discretion when issuing a sentence, which she said had left her “disappointed.”

“Because of the prison overcrowding, we have been limited to a great extent in when we can actually impose a meaningful consequence on someone who just refuses to follow the rules of a system,” Williams said.

Williams said that this has resulted in “unfairness” in the state’s prison system. Williams encouraged those in attendance to lobby local legislators and insist on more “fairness” with the prison system as well as more “obvious and open” information in regards to prison sentencing.

“We have a finite number of people in our prison system and what I suggest is an audit of everyone in custody — Why are they there? How long have they been there? What is their history? — because there are many ways that you can work out a program to give us an indication of what would be fair under the circumstances,” Williams said.