Star Tribune
Ramsey County substance abuse court celebrates 20 years of sobriety support
Vilye Yang knows how the Ramsey County drug court works. He counts himself among the hundreds who veered off the dangerous path of addiction thanks to it.
As he stood before the group of court workers and fellow addicts in recovery Friday, Yang, 37, told the story of how he was born and raised in St. Paul as the son of Laotian immigrants. Recreational drug use with friends, he said, ballooned into a decadelong addiction that felt like “a very long and lonely road.”
That road soon landed him in jail, where a representative of Ramsey County’s Adult Substance Abuse Court offered him a way out in return for entering its treatment program. It was there that he learned how to wash clothes, budget his food, care of himself, and most important, stay clean.
“When I was in jail, and when I was in treatment and in drug court, [the] only thing I was thinking about was, ‘Please God, just give me a little bit of normal. I just want to have a normal life,'” Yang said. “I just want to live a normal life, normal job, and just for things to be normal. It took a long time for that to really happen.”
Yang was among dozens gathered Friday in the Ramsey County Courthouse to celebrate the 20-year anniversary of the Adult Substance Abuse Court, a drug court that partners substance use offenders with social workers, probation officers and others in order to help offenders find sobriety.
Old and new graduates gathered for the event, catching up on each others’ lives and to hear testimonials about the court’s effectiveness. Chief Ramsey County District Judge Leonardo Castro said the court is critical for helping people with substance abuse and mental health disorders.
In 2020, he said, more than 91,000 people died from drug overdoses in the United States. In the country’s prisons, 65% of all inmates have a substance abuse disorder, and $80 billion is spent on incarceration annually. He cited federal data that shows participating in treatment court can reduce offenders’ chance of recidivism by up to 26%.
“So it doesn’t matter what angle or what perspective you have as it relates to treatment courts … [they] are necessary, and they work,” Castro said.
Evidence of treatment courts’ success is mounting now, but it was not so easy to prove before.
Joanne Smith, the first woman to be appointed chief judge in Minnesota, said that when she founded the Ramsey County program in October 2002, she did so on “a wing and prayer.”
Hennepin County already had launched a drug treatment court years prior, but many clients were breaking the law again soon after leaving it. It was hard to convince potential stakeholders that the court could be successful, but Smith said she saw many Southern states normalizing treatment courts as way to reduce jail populations.
“And I thought, with my Northern arrogance, what’s wrong with us? Why aren’t we doing this?” Smith said. “When I see an obstacle, I see an opportunity. That grows out of my stubbornness, or my perseverance. We faced many of those along the way, but we never gave up. And here we are 20 years later.”
The court is one of 70 treatment courts across Minnesota, with at least one in each of the state’s 10 judicial districts. Among them are DWI Court, Veterans Court, Mental Health Court and Juvenile Drug Court. The Ramsey County program is designed to provide participants with the opportunity to break the cycle of substance abuse by using assessment, drug and mental health treatment, strict supervision, random testing and regular court hearings, along with immediate sanctions and incentives to help participants stay drug free.
Hundreds of people have graduated from Smith’s court, and it has earned national recognition that has included invitations to mentor other jurisdictions’ courts.
Yang acknowledges that recovery isn’t easy. More than a dozen years later, he still has nightmares of using drugs. But through all that time, he has remained sober. He’s the manager of a manufacturing facility, and in 2016 he bought a house — and a Cadillac. He’s also a proud father of seven children, ranging from 11 months to 18 years.
“Yeah,” he said. “Life is good.”
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A 65-year-old pedestrian was struck and killed by a pickup truck near Christmas Lake Friday afternoon as she was walking through a crosswalk, the Minnesota State Patrol said.
The woman was crossing Highway 7 around 1 p.m. when she was hit by a 2019 Ford F-150 turning left from Christmas Lake Road onto the highway headed east, the State Patrol said in its report. The intersection is just east of Excelsior, between Saint Albans Bay and Christmas Lake west of Minneapolis.
The Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office, Minnetonka police, and other agencies responded to the fatal collision. The State Patrol has not released the identity of the pedestrian.
The driver has not been arrested. Agencies are still investigating the collision, State Patrol Lt. Michael Lee said. Alcohol was not involved in the crash, the State Patrol said.
Former trooper Shane Roper, 32, had his last day Tuesday, State Patrol Lt. Michael Lee said. Roper’s attorney did not immediately return a request for comment Friday evening.
In July, Roper was charged with criminal vehicular homicide and manslaughter. He was also charged with criminal vehicle operation related to five other people who were seriously injured in the incident.
The criminal complaint states that Roper had been pursuing someone “suspected of committing a petty traffic offense” as he exited Hwy. 52 onto 12th Street SW. As he neared the intersection with Apache Drive, he reportedly turned his lights off and continued to accelerate with a fully engaged throttle.
Roper was traveling at 83 mph with his lights and siren off as he approached the intersection, a Rochester police investigation found. The trooper’s squad car slammed into the passenger side of a car occupied by Olivia Flores, which was heading west and turning into the mall.
Flores died from the blunt force injuries. She was an Owatonna High School cheerleader and set to graduate June 7. There were two other people in the car with Flores.
Olmsted County Attorney Mark Ostrem said in a statement following the charges that Roper violated his duty in “a gross fashion.”
Roper told investigators he was not paying attention to his speed at the time of the crash, and that he believed his lights were still activated when he exited the highway.
Steven Frane Bailey, 56, of St. Louis Park was arrested in connection with the incident and charged with two counts of criminal vehicular homicide and nine counts of criminal vehicular operation. His blood alcohol content measured at 0.325% after officers administered a preliminary breath test at HCMC, according to charges filed in Hennepin County District Court.
In his first court appearance Wednesday, Bailey told a judge his use of alcohol is not a problem. He has an extensive history of drunken driving convictions, starting in 1985 in Wisconsin. Additional convictions followed in Wabasha County in 1993 and Hennepin County in 1998, according to court records. Two more convictions followed in 2014 and 2015.
A Hennepin County judge set his bail at $500,000 with several conditions, including that Bailey take a substance use disorder assessment, that he abstain from drinking alcohol, avoid Park Tavern and stay away from the victims and his family.
His next court appearance is tentatively scheduled for Oct. 1.
Staff writers Paul Walsh and Jeff Day contributed to this report.
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