In Manhattan, where a pilot court was started in 1998, 136 have participated, including 78 last year.
The same week, another San Francisco pilot court program, the Probation Alternatives Court, which offers offenders rehabilitative services instead of incarceration, was notified that it would be closed at the end of the year, though it had kept 100 percent of its defendants out of prison.
Most Americans had little idea how frequently American pilots courted such dangers.
For example, in Brooklyn, which has operated a pilot treatment court since 1996, the courts have diverted 1,558 nonviolent offenders to drug treatment, including 342 last year.
Judge Kaye's plan is patterned after 16 pilot drug courts across the state that sentence eligible offenders who test positive for drugs to rehabilitation, under strict court monitoring.
A Senate bill to allow pilot medical courts (among other reforms) may begin hearings early next year.
Marilyn Sanders, 37, said the pilot drug court in Brooklyn, on which this system will be modeled, transformed her life.
But over the last several months, Judge Lippman and Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye, the state's highest judge, have each held a private meeting with judges who criticized the pilot plan, court officials said.
In a 1991 case involving John L. Cheek, an American Airlines pilot, the court held that if an individual could persuade a jury that he sincerely believed that he did not have to pay taxes, even if there was no rational basis for the belief, the person could not be convicted of tax evasion -- a crime that requires intent.
