A state district attorney and judge are at legal odds over the establishment of a drug court in Pawnee County.
Rex Duncan, the district attorney for Osage and Pawnee counties, has made claims that Associate District Judge Patrick Pickerill used a "sham legal process" to backdate two administrative orders that appointed a secretary bailiff and created a drug court on October 30th.
The Tulsa World reports that another judge denied Duncan's initial claims and ratified the orders on January 14th.
The issue started when Pickerill, appointed by Gov. Mary Fallin in December 2013, created the orders to appoint a bailiff and establish a drug court on Oct. 30. Partly because Pickerill “was in a contested election for his position as judge,” the orders were not filed at that time with Court Clerk Janet Dallas, according to court documents filed by Smallwood. Upon discovering the unfiled administrative orders, Pickerill confronted Dallas in early December and had the orders filed and dated to reflect when they were signed (Oct. 30), records indicate. Duncan contested the date change in court and the matter went to Chappelle, who wrote that an agreement to affix a file stamp on the date the orders were entered in court instead of the date presented to the court clerk “would not make the orders less effective and doesn’t make the orders sham process.”
Two weeks later, Duncan's office executed a search warrant that prompted the seizure of four computers from Pickerill's office in Pawnee.
Duncan says the investigation, which centers on a conspiracy to commit a felony and an effort to hide that conspiracy, began after he was alerted to the matter by an elected official.
Pickerill's attorney says that Duncan is pursuing this case because of his personal dislike of drug courts and their funding sources.
In an interview with the Tulsa World in January, Pickerill said that the one of his goals when he took office was to establish a drug court. “In Pawnee County, we’ve always held a pretty strong line against drugs,” he said. “We’ve had a serious issue with meth labs. The fact that these people are being incarcerated and released and they are going right back to that lifestyle … we’re not making much of a dent, to be honest, with the drug issue. “The research shows that people who go through drug court have a much higher rate of success in keeping their families together, being employed and becoming better members of society. What we’re doing is not working so we need to try something else.”
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