DWI tool is curbed in N.C.

North Carolina has prevented the state's drug and DWI treatment courts from using technology that has helped thousands of alcoholics stay sober.

Guidelines approved in 2007 prohibit those courts from using the ankle bracelets commonly employed to ensure that offenders don't drink.

That decision has puzzled and frustrated some officials, who ask whether opposition to the technology was sparked in part by turf battles and personality conflicts.

David Wallace, director of the National Center for DWI Courts, said he's not aware of any other state that has imposed such restrictions.

"I'm very surprised," said Wallace, whose organization helps train officials in setting up DWI courts. "...It takes away one more tool that could be used to monitor people ... so they're not out there risking the community's safety."

The decision to prohibit the bracelets in the drug treatment courts follows opposition by two high-ranking state officials who have raised concerns about the technology. Few dispute some of their chief contentions: The devices are pricey, and they can't stop someone from driving drunk.

The state's more than 40 drug and DWI treatment courts are designed to help rehabilitate repeat offenders who suffer from addictions. Participants are typically required to follow their jail sentences with months of intensive alcohol or drug treatment.

Judges in other N.C. courts can still order use of the bracelets, which test an offender's sweat every half hour for signs of alcohol use. When those on probation are caught drinking, judges can order more treatment or punishment. Offenders pay a private company $12 a day for the device.

Gregg Stahl, the senior deputy director of the N.C. Administrative Office of the Courts, is widely viewed as one of the chief foes of the technology.

All the studies about the reliability of the bracelets, Stahl contended, have been funded by the device's leading manufacturer. "That sort of taints the science," he said.

He also maintains the device is vulnerable to "significant false positives" - that is, registering alcohol use when there has been none.

But an author of one study disputes those claims, noting that his research was funded by the federal government.

"Overall, the device worked as it was intended," said co-author Scott McKnight, whose study was published by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. "... False positives aren't really a problem."

McKnight and his fellow researcher did encounter one problem: The device became less able to detect alcohol use the longer it was worn. Stephen Talpins, vice president of Alcohol Monitoring Systems, the device's leading manufacturer, said the company has corrected that problem.

Endorsements

A number of groups - including the National Association of Drug Court Professionals and the N.C. Conference of District Attorneys - have endorsed the technology. And a preliminary study by the National Center for State Courts found that repeat DWI offenders who wore the bracelets for 90 days or more were less likely to drive drunk again.

Judges sometimes agree to give a shorter jail sentence if an offender is willing to be monitored by the bracelet. But Stahl and some other state officials ask whether that's fair to those who can't afford the $12 daily fee.

If such technology is used, he argued, the state should own and control it - and judges should be able to provide it regardless of ability to pay.

The bracelets aren't appropriate for drug treatment courts, Stahl said, because drug users - not alcoholics - are the target group for those courts.

Still, it's not uncommon for those courts to monitor alcoholics. About 20 percent of the more than 1,000 adult offenders who participate in an N.C. drug treatment court each year report alcohol as their "drug of choice," state data show.

The device can't immediately stop anyone from driving drunk, Stahl noted. Court officials aren't alerted as soon as an offender begins drinking because the test data are typically transmitted to a central computer just once each day.

"At some point, you're going to write an article where someone's killed somebody and they've got one of these bracelets on their ankle," said Stahl, the No. 2 official in the N.C. courts office and a 39-year veteran of state government. "And it's going to kill the entire industry."

'System will collapse'

In January 2007, a little-known state committee made a far-reaching decision.

Stahl provided the Drug Treatment Court Advisory Committee a two-page memo laying out many concerns about the technology.

The committee also received a collection of e-mails from others who had raised questions. One of the most vocal opponents was Robert Guy, then head of the state's probation system, who spoke out against the cost and marketing of the device.

"I am adamently [sic] opposed to the door to door sales peddling approach used by this company to our Judges, DA's, defense attorneys, etc. ... ," reads a 2006 e-mail Guy wrote to one judge. "They are peddling their goods in the wrong environment and in disregard of our competitive bid process."

Guy worried that such companies could interfere with the way his 2,600-employee agency functioned.

"If we open the flood gates for any and all vendors and technologies to solicit business directly from the courts[,] our system will collapse and community correction, probation, and post release as we know it will be rendered ineffective ...." Guy wrote. "Soon to follow is privitizing [sic] and gutting the system, which I strongly oppose."

The committee recommended barring the devices in drug treatment courts.

Bruce Roberts, president of Rehabilitation Support Services, a Brevard company that provides the bracelets to N.C. courts, said his company is working to make the devices more affordable for low-income offenders.

He said former N.C. Chief Justice I. Beverly Lake in 2005 gave him approval to approach court officials about the technology. The company has since stopped going door to door to market the device, he said.

In his quest to make the technology widely available in North Carolina, Roberts pushed hard - and rubbed some officials the wrong way, some say.

"I believe there must be some personal animosity on the part of individuals at AOC and Corrections for opposing this life-saving device," said Rufus Edmisten, a former North Carolina. attorney general who served as an unpaid lobbyist for Rehabilitation Support Services. "I find that reprehensible that people in government would let petty things get in the way of saving lives."

Stahl, however, said his opposition was based on the merits of the technology, not a personality clash.

Guy retired from his job in 2009 after Gov. Bev Perdue made it clear he would not stay on in her administration. A News & Observer investigation the previous year found that his staff left dangerous probationers unwatched - and that he missed chances to implement technology to help his officers. He now heads a company that provides probation officers with a Web-based system for keeping tabs on offenders.

The 2007 edict continues to impede the use of the technology, Roberts says. In North Carolina, about 1,100 offenders have been monitored by the devices. Nationally, the number exceeds 140,000.

As the Charlotte Observer reported last month, another decision has also sharply limited the bracelets' use: Under a provision in state law - which experts call the only one of its kind nationally - judges aren't allowed to put the devices on serious DWI offenders for more than 60 days.

That's how long Howard Pasour was ordered to wear the bracelet last year after his third DWI conviction. Pasour was allowed to remove the device in January. Today he's in jail, charged with causing a crash in Gaston County last month that killed Laura Fortenberry, 17. Authorities say he had been drinking.

Whether a longer stint on the bracelet would have made a difference in Pasour's case is unclear. But researchers have found that it typically takes more than 60 days of abstinence to ensure that people with serious alcohol problems change their behavior

Choosing their battles

Some judges have been reluctant to use the technology until they think all offenders can afford it.

The state's decree cut short a program in Mecklenburg County that was designed to make the devices more affordable.

In 2008, the county launched a six-month program to make the anklets available to 100 low-income offenders. But when Stahl learned of the program, he sent the county manager's office an e-mail noting that state guidelines prohibited the technology's use in drug treatment courts.

Soon afterward, Mecklenburg canceled the 2-month-old program.

"My vague recollection is, I didn't want to be in opposition to the AOC on this," said Michelle Lancaster, the county general manager whodecided to end the program.

Billy Wilson, a former analyst for the county manager's office who helped establish the pilot program, said that he and Lancaster understood that defying the AOC could wind up hurting the county. North Carolina's justice system is state-run, so the AOC must sign off on all efforts to use county money on the courts, he noted.

"We were picking and choosing our battles," Wilson said.

Soon after the Mecklenburg program was canceled, Sen. John Snow, D-Cherokee, wrote to the AOC's director to complain about the "continued interference by Stahl."

"Now a money saving program that would have been an example for the other North Carolina counties is destroyed," Snow wrote.

Stahl said he wasn't trying to end the program. But, he said, Mecklenburg officials were planning to use the bracelets for offenders in the drug treatment courts, among others.

"I didn't want Mecklenburg County to be crosswise with the guidelines the committee issued," he said.

Those in the state's drug treatment courts represent only a small percentage of offenders, Stahl notes.

Still, many advocates say, there's little question the tool would assist courts in their mission to help hundreds of alcoholics stay sober.

Janeanne Tourtellott, Mecklenburg County's drug treatment court administrator, acknowledges that the bracelets won't prevent all drunken driving.

"But it begins to allow treatment to come in more quickly...," she said. "To me, it just seems like one of those pieces of the puzzle that helps bring a brighter light on the problem."