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Titus Recommends Client for Boot Camp, Challenges Wyoming System

By stladmin on May 3, 2018

Wyoming has a progressive program in place for first-time offenders. The state’s Youthful Offender Program, commonly referred to as Boot Camp, is a six-month program that emphasizes rehabilitation rather than punishment. When it comes to drug offenses, most people charged are non-violent and in need of serious help. Is prison the best place for them?

Many experts would disagree.

Wyoming’s Boot Camp is available for criminals under 25 years of age and involves educational, physical, and therapeutic activities. Offenders who successfully complete the program are released on probation or to a halfway house, and hopefully, will never set foot inside a prison for the rest of their lives. The only problem with the Boot Camp program is that it is, currently, only available to men. Young, female first-time offenders have no choice but prison.

That’s just not right. And we at Steven Titus & Associates, P.C., are doing something about it.

In 2017, a Sublette County judge recommended Boot Camp for a 24-year-old woman, the first Wyoming judge ever to do so. But because the state had no such program for women, this young woman was looking at six to 10 years of prison time. With the help of the ACLU, she sued, and was eventually allowed to attend a woman’s boot camp in Florida. Since then, two more women have been recommended for the Boot Camp program—most recently, a 23-year-old Gillette woman named Mariah Gomez.

The judge’s decision to recommend Boot Camp for Gomez came after her attorney, Steven Titus of Steven Titus & Associates, P.C., argued that she was an ideal candidate for the program because she had not committed a violent crime, is young and remorseful, and had stopped using drugs. Gomez was found guilty of a parole violation of a child endangerment charge. The initial charge came after she was caught with methamphetamine in a house where a two-year-old child lived.

Whether Ms. Gomez is allowed to attend a boot camp program in another state, or if she’ll have to serve her two to three-year sentence in a Wyoming prison, has yet to be decided by the Department of Corrections. But, as attorney Titus stated in a Gillette News Record article, “It is a travesty to the citizens of Wyoming that young women aren’t being given the same opportunities as young men.”

Many people mistakenly think that, if arrested or charged with a crime, their future is doomed. This could not be farther from the truth. A skilled Gillette drug crime attorney can get charges reduced or dropped altogether, and also negotiate with a judge for probation or a lighter sentence. If you have any questions regarding criminal defense, either for yourself or a family member, you need to contact the legal team at Steven Titus & Associates, P.C. Call (307) 257-7800 today for a free case strategy session.

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