X-Message-Number: 20176
Date: Wed, 25 Sep 2002 14:52:30 -0700 (PDT)
From: Driven FromThePack <>
Subject: Judge Patricia Thomas

Here is a picture of the judge who will be holding the
Ted Williams hearing Oct 3:



http://216.239.53.100/search?q=cache:iQhSVgsQFVkC:asia.news.yahoo.com/020730/ap/cho102073015.html+%22patricia+thomas%22+inverness&hl=en&ie=UTF-8


She seems like a fair minded and pragmatic person.
Here is a quote from her regarding people who come up
on drug charges:

Courthouse workers hope Kristofferson's story is
repeated many times when Citrus County opens its own
drug court this week. After months of planning, the
Citrus County Drug Court will hold its inaugural
session when it greets the first dozen or so
applicants Wednesday. With the grand opening, Citrus
will join more than 500 court systems that have formed
drug courts since Miami-Dade County invented it in
1989. Circuit Judge Patricia Thomas proposed the
Citrus County Drug Court after she spent one year on
the felony bench. Like her predecessors in Miami-Dade,
she couldn't believe how many defendants were facing
drug charges. If they weren't there for buying or
using drugs, they were stealing to pay for their
habits. 

"The courts are recognizing that, when people come
into the system for drug offenses, you're not just
dealing with one person and their situation. It
affects families," Thomas said. "If we can assist them
in getting things in order, maybe they won't come back
here." 



__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
New DSL Internet Access from SBC & Yahoo!
http://sbc.yahoo.com

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=20176