Jacob Hughes began his trek toward rehabilitation nearly two weeks ago, in a third-floor courtroom of the Buchanan County Courthouse.

The 20-year-old man, standing in an orange, jail-issued jumpsuit and shackles, pleaded guilty to a pair of felonies in front of Judge Dan Kellogg. Back in April, Mr. Hughes was high on methamphetamine at his St. Joseph apartment complex when he saw a fellow resident deposit money in the night drop box. Mr. Hughes grabbed a curtain rod and unsuccessfully tried to fish the money out of the box, earning him an attempted burglary charge. Three months later, he bought cigarettes with a stolen credit card.

The judge ordered Mr. Hughes into a 120-day, post-conviction treatment program. If he completes that, the defendant will receive a chance to rehabilitate himself in drug court. Buchanan County is offering the young man thousands of dollars worth of treatment for free, a suspended imposition of sentence and the chance to shake one of the nastiest drugs around. If Mr. Hughes is a typical participant in drug court, he will relapse numerous times, even if ultimately successful.

It's not uncommon for drug court graduates to complete the program with 20 minor violations. According to Buchanan County Prosecutor Dwight Scroggins, the average addict relapses about six times before finally getting clean. But a select few will get clean, stay clean, secure a long-term job and resurrect their life without another legal hiccup.

Even for those individuals, that guilty plea still remains with them. It could cost them educational chances, financial aid or employment opportunities.

"You would hate to see that cripple somebody who made a bad decision at 17," said Judge Pat Robb, who runs one of Buchanan County's two drug courts.

The county's drug court, the third founded in the state, has remained virtually unchanged since its inception in 1997. Local prosecutors and defense attorneys differ on whether that's a sign of success or stubbornness. But there is one potential area of change where all parties seem to agree - truly exemplary graduates of the program should be able to retract their guilty plea.

While the two defense attorneys the News-Press interviewed each stated their desire to see guilty pleas done away with for people who wish to enter the program, both Dawn Williams and Sue Rinne see defendants' ability to take back their plea as progress.

Mr. Scroggins said he has broached this subject with Dan Kellogg, the other drug court judge, recently, and the two are in agreement.

"If they do something really extraordinary, then I think we should have some type of reward for that, something that acknowledges they made some sort of effort above and beyond what everybody else has made," Mr. Scroggins said.

Mr. Scroggins was quick to qualify that statement. He isn't offering a reprieve to all drug court participants, by any means. But Mr. Scroggins and Mr. Kellogg both stressed that the point of drug court is not to ensnare folks into a strict system, then punish them with a sort of "gotcha" mentality. It's rehabilitation, and for those select few who earn it, Mr. Scroggins wants to ensure they're rewarded with a clean sheet.

"It's the exception. It can't become the rule," he said.

Mr. Scroggins wants to see graduates stay drug-free for a significant period of time, finish high school, attain employment and/or start college. The key to implementing the change is ensuring the graduates are still under the judges' jurisdiction, which they are while on probation.

If that's the case, the judge still has the authority to remove the plea. Once people finish probation, the judge no longer has jurisdiction over that person and couldn't expunge the plea.

These are issues Mr. Robb plans to discuss with the prosecutor's office and his fellow judge in the coming months.

"I fully support that," Mr. Robb said. "The prosecutor would have to be in agreement, and the court would have to consent to that. I think that's all it requires. It would be on a case-by-case basis."

For someone like Mr. Hughes, that would provide a chance to flip his life right-side-up once more and emerge from the haze of drug addiction with a clean record. And regardless of the specifics of each program nationally and the various points of debate, that's ultimately why one drug court has multiplied into more than 2,000 in the past two decades - to give people another shot at living their lives productively.

R.J. Cooper can be reached

at rjcooper@npgco.com.