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Judge Court Is Guilty Of Due Process Violations

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One drug court is unlike any other in the country. Judge Williams’s courts in Georgia’s Glynn and Camden Counties do not honor a major component of rule of law—due process. Due process is fair treatment through the judicial system. It includes, among a few other rights, the rights to receive an impartially fair trial and subsequent reasonable punishment, to grieve or complain against the charges and government official in charge, and to appeal. Judge Amanda William’s drug court is guilty of due process violations in each of the three mentioned major categories of due process. In order to stop the due process violations and bring drug courts around the US into compliance with the rule of law, the drug court system in the US must be …show more content…

Already the charge was unreasonable because the charge was much more severe than the average charge for this type of crime and therefore violated the rule of law. After Dills chose drug court, punishment actually became much worse than even two years in jail. According to West Huddleston, the head of the National Association of Drug Court Professionals, most of the jail-time served by members in drug courts are 12 to 24 hours long at a time. However, Dills in her first three years of drug court already had jail stays of 51, 90, and 104 days. After these extended stays, she was then put into solitary confinement for what Judge Williams called “an indefinite period of time” (Very Tough Love). No other drug court in the country uses indefinite jail times as punishment. Judge Williams is not impartial in these sentences. According to Ira Glass, a investigative journalist and host for the public radio show, This American Life, members of the drug court told him that Judge Williams would declare things like, “They 're going to sit their ass over there till they get a better attitude” or “Take them away. You 'll come back when I 'm ready for you” (Very Tough Love). Clearly, Judge Williams’s drug court fails to honor due process because the court is not impartial and jail

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