Crawford County Common Pleas Court Judge Sean Leuthold has made waves ever since taking the bench nearly a year ago.
Since that time, the county has seen a record number of indictments and a significant increase of defendants sent to jail. Some of Leuthold’s refrains have become nearly commonplace in the courtroom as he takes a hardline stance against drugs. From the oft uttered “this is not the county to be doing drugs” to the unusual “three idiots with a pellet gun,” Leuthold has made his mark on Crawford County, whether residents believe it is for good or bad.
So who is Sean Leuthold and what is he doing on Crawford County Now’s opinion page? Well, we have opened the floor for the judge to speak about whatever he wants to talk about. Over the next five days we will be running a five-part introduction piece on Crawford County Common Pleas Court Judge Sean Leuthold. Each day will feature a different section of the interview our reporter Krystal Smalley had with Leuthold about himself and the justice system in Crawford County. After that, Leuthold will occasionally submit articles to us that will cover a range of topics of his choosing.
Welcome to . . . The Judge’s Chambers.
Krystal: You’ve sentenced so many people into prison. Sooner or later, they are going to come back out. How do you think you can deal with that?
Leuthold: I think it’s real simple. Some of these people have never really suffered any consequences and this is their first time. Some of them, it’s the first time they do something and, by golly, they got consequences. What I think the message they are going to have when they come back – if they decide to come back to Crawford County – is: I’m going to either behave myself or I’m going to go right back to prison.
Many times, if you notice, when I talk to somebody I sentence to prison, I explain to them. I go, ‘hey, look, you’re going to serve your time, you’re going to come back. If you decide to come back to Crawford County, you want to behave yourself, obey the law, do the right thing, everything’s going to be fine. But if you think you’re going to come back and start doing the exact same things, you’re going to end up probably with the exact same result.’
What I’m hoping is that basically when people get out of prison and they decide they want to come back to Crawford County, they’ll understand that violating the law is going to be met with immediate consequences, and sometimes those consequences are lengthy prison sentences.
If they want to come back and obey the law – that’s great. Some may decide, you know what, Crawford County is not for me because I can’t behave myself. I’m going to go someplace where I’m not going to be held accountable for my actions. If they want to do that that’s their own business, but at least they won’t be causing problems for Crawford County.
Krystal: How is your relationship with the treatment community so far? You have your ISAT program.
Leuthold: I’m all-the-above approach. All right? I think we should try to do everything in our power to resolve the opiate and the heroin problem. Simply put, you should be in three places. This is something I say all the time, but it’s true and the longer I’m on the job, the more I adhere to this principle.
If you are involved with drugs, especially if you’re addicted to drugs, there’s three places you should be. In recovery, which means you are using. In treatment, which means you are actively involved in some sort of treatment program. In-patient’s best but sometimes it’s out-patient. And in-treatment programs are monitored correctly, where you’re being tested and you’re being held accountable for your actions. So, the three “I”s are: In recovery, in treatment, and the final one is incarcerated.
What I have explained to the treatment folks – and I think that they are on board – is we’ve got someone who’s refusing treatment, not in recovery, we do not have a choice. Letting a person basically run around free in Crawford County while being addicted to heroin, without being in recovery or in treatment, is a failure because of a few things.
Number one: it’s dangerous. It’s dangerous to the public because someone addicted to heroin, there’s a very high chance they’re going to commit some sort of crime and victimize somebody. But, and this is one of the things I’ve convinced treatment people and people involved in social work and people who want to help, what I’ve explained to them – and I think they agree – is the addict themselves is extremely vulnerable to being victimized themselves. This is especially true with females. Females can be exploited in a number of different ways. I’m not going to go into details, but they can go through horrible things. There’s dangers, obviously, of an overdose. There’s dangers to health, which is HIV or Hepatitis C. There’s issues where females can get pregnant, and then they’re actively using heroin while they’re pregnant, which endangers both the baby’s health as well as themselves.
Those are all terrible things. And it’s more humane, it’s better for the individual, and it’s better for society for people who are in that category, where they’re just not going to get treatment or they’re not going to be in recovery – they’re going to be incarcerated for their own good and for the good of everyone else.
I think the treatment people understand that. I really do.
I do have the Intensive Supervision and Treatment program. That does focus heavily on treatment. There are a wide variety. We have individual counseling, there’s group counseling. I bring in people every week to speak to the group and give them other options. If they want to get involved in faith-based and church-based programs, that’s an option, too. If they want to get involved in programs and help with jobs, that’s available to them. There’s a program that helps people become better parents; it’s called the Fatherhood program, but it includes mothers and fathers. Those are all made available. There’s two or three people who use medically-assisted treatment. We throw the kitchen sink at the program.
We’ve achieved some success. I’m not going to put a number on it, but we’re doing very well. Well above the national average when it comes to helping people.
But – that program also has with it immediate consequences if you decide you’re going to relapse, use drugs, or commit a new crime. I don’t enjoy doing it, but I’ve put a number of the ISAT people in prison for failing to do what they’re supposed to. Now, we’ve had a lot of success, but we still hold everybody accountable. I think the treatment people understand that and I want to work hand in hand with them.
People keep telling me over and over again – I go to seminars and the message will be the same: we’re never going to arrest our way out of this problem; we’re not going to incarcerate our way out of this problem. I would agree with that, but we’re not going to treat our way out of this problem, either. It’s got to be everything. Some people need to go to prison, some people respond well to treatment. It’s part of my job to figure out who goes where.
What I’m not going to do is take someone who is not going to respond well to treatment, who clearly doesn’t want to have treatment, and just throw them into a treatment program just because. If prison is what’s needed, prison is what that person’s going to get. If treatment is an option – and I think the person deserves it – they’ll get that chance. But I’m going to put the person, and deal with the person, where I think it’s appropriate. I’m not going to send everyone to treatment first and then if they mess up there, then they get prison. Each individual gets looked at individually and sometimes the answer is: look, we can’t help them, all we can do is incarcerate them to protect the public.
It’s a long answer, I apologize.
Welcome to The Judge’s Chambers series: Part I, Part II, Part III