Trimble: ‘We send more people to prison down here than they do in urban areas’

In recent years, the number of cases that Commonwealth’s Attorney Allen Trimble prosecutes in Whitley and McCreary County has jumped from about 440 cases annually to about 500 cases.

"The recent increase in the number of cases is basically due to our prescription drug problem," Trimble told the Williamsburg Kiwanis Club on June 14. "We all hear about Oxycontin and Percocet and that stuff. It is a horrible problem.

"We are losing a generation of people and we are working on another generation of people. I have now sent fathers, sons and grandsons to prison all for a drug-related crime."

Trimble said every prosecutor in the state could agree that prescription drug abuse is a horrible problem, but sending defendants to prison or jail isn’t going to solve the problem.

"We are still going to have the same amount of prescription drugs out there today as there will be in five years unless we have changes," he added.

Trimble said the changes aren’t needed in law enforcement but with doctors and the pharmaceutical companies.

"Unless they change the formulation of some of these pain killers to where they don’t provide the euphoria that addicts need and addicts are attracted to, then we are always going to have a pill problem," he noted.

Thanks to recent legislation, doctors are starting to become more selective on how they handle the prescription of medications for patients, Trimble said.

The state legislature passed a new law a couple of years ago that requires doctors to check a statewide database to see if patients are getting the same prescription by another doctor.

Methamphetamine continues to be a horrible problem.

He estimates that between Whitley and McCreary County he has about 50 pending cases for either meth manufacturing, possession of meth precursors or possession of meth.

"Meth is horribly addictive. I’ve had defendants tell me that after they took meth for the first time, they were addicted," Trimble said.

Trimble said that Tennessee is trying to get a law passed requiring a prescription for pseudoephedrine, which is the one essential ingredient used to make meth. The Tennessee law would allow pharmacists to write a prescription for the medication rather than requiring people to get one from a doctor.

"What we have seen, when pseudoephedrine is sold behind the counters, meth labs are reduced tremendously. Oklahoma passed that law. Their meth labs went down by 80 percent," Trimble noted. "Pseudoephedrine is the only ingredient of meth that you have to have. If we could control the sale of pseudoephedrine, then we could help our meth problem considerably."

He added that heroin is a drug that is becoming increasingly popular because it is cheaper than pills.

"We now see it in our area. It is a horrible drug. I hate to see it take hold around here, but it is a price thing. The price is cheap right now," Trimble said.

Trimble is one of 57 commonwealth’s attorneys across Kentucky, and has been prosecuting cases for over 25 years.

Fayette County Commonwealth’s Attorney Ray Larson is the only commonwealth’s attorney in Kentucky, who has been serving more years than Trimble.

Trimble’s circuit is composed of Whitley and McCreary counties. He noted that some circuits are composed of as many as four counties and some have one county depending on population.

"This circuit probably has 55,000 people so that is pretty average for a two-county circuit," he noted.

"Overall, our circuit is the 18th busiest in the state. We have about 500 new criminal cases a year."

Trimble estimates that about 85 percent of those indicted in his circuit either plead guilty or are found guilty.

Charges will be dismissed against some, who are proven innocent. In other cases, the victim will sometimes decide to drop the charges, particularly if the victim is related to the defendant, he said.

"Grandmothers, who have taken out warrants against grandsons for taking their checks, will sometimes come in and say, ‘I don’t want to send my grandson to prison,’" Trimble added.

Of the remaining cases, the vast majority are resolved via plea agreement in part because the system couldn’t function if every case were tried.

"We try a lot of cases, but we don’t try as many as maybe some people would like," he noted. "Statistics tell us that 95 percent of all criminal cases in federal and state court are resolved by plea."

There are only 120 trial days in Whitley County and 120 trial days in McCreary County per year since jurors can only serve 30 days during their three-month term.

In addition to criminal cases, jurors must also try civil cases, but the nearly all the civil cases are settled short of trial.

"We don’t have the resources or the ability to try every case. We are forced to settle a predominate amount of cases that we have," he added.

Trimble said prosecutors try to offer plea agreements in line with what they think a jury would sentence a person to.
In many cases, judges are under certain legal restrictions on certain crimes where they are all but obligated to probate a defendant.

Trimble estimates that more people are sentenced to prison in Whitley County than they are in places like Fayette County.

Fayette County circuit judges will typically probate about 55-60 percent of cases. In Whitley County, Trimble estimates that about 65 percent of defendants in circuit court receive a prison sentence.

"Generally speaking, we send more people to prison down here than they do in the urban areas," Trimble said. "It is not so much the prosecutor as it is the judicial system."