Ethical Considerations for Judges and Attorneys in Drug Court

摘要

Drug courts reshape the professional roles of judges and lawyers working in them. Judges, used to working in relative solitude, become part of a collaborative decision-making team that includes treatment providers, court personnel, and attorneys. Prosecutors and defense counsel learn to coordinate their efforts to achieve a participants recovery from alcohol or drug addiction, muting their traditional adversarial relationship. In the courtroom, the typical lawyer-dominated hearing gives way to conversations between judge and defendant. These and other changes in the professional roles of lawyers and judges are crucial to the drug court model but raise serious ethical questions. Can one be a good lawyer or judge in the drug court context. This publication seeks to answer that question through a commentary on selected provisions of three American Bar Association (ABA) ethical codes- the Model Code of Judicial Conduct, the Model Rules of Professional Conduct, and the ABA Standards for Criminal Justice. This study concludes that practitioners in drug court need heightened ethical sensitivity in both the design of particular drug court programs and in daily practice, but the proper exercise of the roles of judge or lawyer in drug court need not conflict with the professionals ethical obligations. Indeed, drug court practice has the potential to fulfill the highest aspirations of judicial and legal ethics.