Charter presides recently over Recovery Opportunity Court in Medford. 

Jesse White stood before Judge Joe Charter at Jackson County Circuit Court. Last year, the Medford resident had stolen vehicles and committed first-degree thefts.

“You look great,” Charter told him.

“Thank you,” replied White, who had recently been admitted to Recovery Opportunity Court, a specialty court that addresses substance abuse and criminal behavior.

White said his previous experience with courts had tainted his view of the system. He told Charter, “I used to look at all you guys like enemies — you know what I mean? — and not as somebody that cared about me.”

To Charter, who retired Sunday, April 30, after 18 years on the bench, ROC feels like “anti-court,” he said. People show up not to be judged and punished, but encouraged, motivated.

Charter quote

“…It’s not easy — people do recover. And those people who do live a life of sobriety are models of hope for participants in the program.”

— Judge Joe Charter

“You don’t see this in most courtrooms most days,” he said.

ROC tries to reshape participants into accountable, productive citizens.

They stabilize in housing — potentially moving from a residential program to a sober living house — undergo alcohol and drug treatment with counselors at Addictions Recovery Center, read a letter to the judge about how they came to need the program.

They learn to write a resume and prepare a budget, look for jobs, sometimes return to school and reunite with loved ones. Eventually they may find employment, work on getting their driver’s license back, start paying down fines, court fees and restitution.

In the final phase, they take classes, continue outpatient groups, read a victim-impact statement in court (victims have a right to be there; usually they’re not). They also undertake a project meant to give back to the community.

The projects tend to be personally meaningful, often relating to services that participants received in the past.

One ROC participant, who relied on the food bank as a kid, pitched a food bank drive. Another wanted to provide clothes and food for homeless people on the Bear Creek Greenway because he, too, had lived there. One man set up donations of backpacks and luggage for foster children so they don’t have to carry their clothes and belongings in garbage bags as his own kids did.

Then they graduate. Participants who don’t relapse or experience other setbacks can complete the program in about 18 months.

Charter said the participants can teach people a lot about humility.

“Some of these people have been through some horrific experiences,” he said.

Many have a broken-down prefrontal cortex — the seat of executive functions — and are operating from the limbic system, he said.

“But, if they want to — it’s not easy — people do recover,” he said, “and those people who do live a life of sobriety are models of hope for participants in the program.”

Treatment courts ultimately are more cost-effective than prison, he said. “These are the people that are going to continue to commit property crimes without a program like this,” he said.

The graduation rate of Jackson County’s drug-treatment program is higher that the statewide rate — 75% to 65%, respectively — according to Charter.

Jackson County’s acceptance rate is also higher. When the county’s ROC program rejects an applicant, the reasons often involve mental health and behavioral issues. People who are violent or destructive, or who remain isolated while in jail, probably won’t do well in a residential program or sober living house.

“We don’t have the services, the solution, for everybody,” he said.

Charter, whose six-year term would have expired in 2026, believes the ROC team is in a good position. Judge Jeremy Markiewicz took over the program in late April.

“But it’s not going to be easy ’cause the drugs are worse — keep getting incrementally worse,” Charter said.

Not long ago, methamphetamine was considered the scourge of Medford. The word “Methford” appears in a 2007 entry in the online Urban Dictionary.

“Now meth is kind of the lower-intensive drug,” Charter said.

In recent years, heroin has given way to fentanyl — a synthetic opioid that the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates at “up to 50 times stronger than heroin” — as a source of addiction and overdoses.

“It’s pouring into our community at an alarming rate,” said Sgt. Josh Reimer of the Medford Area Drug and Gang Enforcement unit. “It’s available to anybody that wants it.”

Last month, MADGE advised that xylazine, an animal tranquilizer with the street name “tranq,” has been detected in seizures of powder fentanyl and counterfeit pills. Narcan and naloxone, designed for opiate overdoses, do not reverse overdoses on tranq, a non-opiate sedative.

Charter quote

“I’d say, ‘This is the worst situation I’ve ever seen.’ And the next week it would be the same thing: ‘No. This is.’ It just kept being the worst situation I’ve ever seen. Heart-wrenching.”

— Judge Joe Charter

When Charter sends people to the Jackson County Jail or to the Jackson County Community Justice Transition Center, he cannot guarantee he is sending them to a drug-free environment, he said. The jail recently had eight inmates overdose in less than two weeks, according to Joshua Aldrich, the jail commander. The Transition Center saw two clients overdose in March, according to Kiki Parker-Rose, the Community Justice director.

The county had 30 overdose deaths in 2019, 41 in 2020, 92 in 2021, according to data from the Jackson County Medical Examiner’s Office. The Medford Police Department said on April 19 it had already recorded 22 overdose deaths in the city alone in 2023.

Charter still has hope, but that hope is for individuals.

“If the village is flooding, you have to decide who you’re going to help,” he said. “If there’s a flood and there’re all kind kinds of people floating down the river, what hands are going to reach out and which ones are you going to be able to grab and pull up?”

Charter told a parable that is popular in the recovery community.

A man walks along a beach that is covered in starfish. He picks them up, one at a time, and tosses them back into the ocean. Someone comes up to him and says, “What are you doing? There are thousands of starfish on the beach. You can’t make a difference.” The man bends over, picks up a starfish, throws it in the ocean and says, “Made a difference for that one.”

That is, Charter said, what most supporters in the recovery community are saying: “‘There’s no way I can fix this problem. There’s no way we can save everyone.’ … But we can one at a time,” he said. “And we do.”

Charter earned his law degree at the University of California, Berkeley, and began his career as a prolific civil litigator, working in property, family, employment and personal injury law. He served as a bankruptcy trustee and a trustee attorney and filed bankruptcy cases.

In 1996, as a partner at Werdell, Charter & Hanson in Medford, he argued a case — Tadsen v. Praegitzer Industries, Inc. — involving unlawful employment practices before the Oregon Supreme Court. The firm’s client walked away with nearly $424,000 in lost wages and noneconomic damages.

Charter served as the county’s Justice of the Peace, a local court judge who handles traffic and municipal code violations, from 2004 to 2019. The part-time job allowed him to run his own law practice.

After several attempts, Charter was elected in May 2020 to Jackson County Circuit Court. He sought the position when Judge Lisa Greif’s judicial fitness and personal ethics were called into question.

Charter began in juvenile dependency court, a docket rotation that tends to produce secondary trauma, he said. Every week for two years he read the emergency pick-up orders detailing why children needed to be removed from their homes and families.

Engel quote

“The people that went through drug court while (Charter) was there will definitely remember him as somebody who cared — sincerely cared — about their well-being.

—  Doug Engle, defense lawyer representative on ROC

“I’d say, ‘This is the worst situation I’ve ever seen.’ And the next week it would be the same thing: ‘No. This is.’ It just kept being the worst situation I’ve ever seen,” he said. “Heart-wrenching.”

He added, “I choose not to remember most of the horrific ones.” He eventually left juvenile dependency and took over domestic relations.

About six months into the Circuit Court job, Judge Kelly Ravassipour, who was then the ROC judge, suggested Charter might want to take over the program.

“I jumped at the chance,” Charter said.

ROC is not unlike traffic court, he said: “Engaging people where they’re at, and trying to give them something positive to leave with.”

Doug Engle, the Southern Oregon public defender who is the defense lawyer representative on ROC, said, “These are people that are looking at going to prison. They’re on edge, they’re nervous, they’re trying to overcome addiction, they’re under pressure, they’re being asked to do things that don’t come naturally to them.

“And (Charter) coaxes them, helps them along the way, makes them understand that he’s their friend, he’s not their master.”

Presiding Judge Benjamin Bloom said, “He’s got a very good judicial temperament. He’s patient and thoughtful.”

The ROC team spoke of Charter as fair, empathetic, forgiving almost to a fault.

“The people that went through drug court while he was there will definitely remember him as somebody who cared — sincerely cared — about their well-being … their progress, wanted to see them do well, sincerely did not want them to live the life of drug addiction and homelessness and prison and family break-ups and all that stuff,” Engle said. “He’s a real compassionate man.”

A community theater actor, Charter knows he could have taken on any number of personas. He chose not to be the stern disciplinarian.

“That works for some people sometimes,” Charter said. “But people, I think, respond better to positive input.”

Charleen Nicholson, a recovery mentor at the Addictions Recovery Center, said, “Often there would be times that I thought, ‘Man, what would get him to raise his voice or show maybe that he’s irritated or disappointed?’ … If he ever felt that way, I didn’t see it from where I sat.”

Charter hopes that his legacy won’t be a particular case he heard or argued, or his name in a law book or on a building, but how he treated people.

“I’ve done everything I can do,” he said. “Doing ROC has been great, and I’m just ready.”

Charter plans to attend the ROC graduation in June and be involved in a proposed alumni group that would give graduates continued support and allow them to become mentors for participants in the second half of the program.

When White came before the court, he said he had used meth but not opiates since he’d been accepted into ROC. That day marked seven days of sobriety, he said.

Charter said, “We’re celebrating seven days.”

The room applauded.

White was also on the verge of getting into a residential program.

Charter said, “I got a magnet for you, Jesse, ’cause I think you’re doing great work.”

The judge stepped from behind the bench into the well of the courtroom and handed him the prize. “I’m proud of you,” Charter said.

“Thank you. Awesome,” White said. More applause. “Sorry for being late today, too.” He offered an explanation.

“You are here,” Charter said.

Correction: This article has been edited to state the accurate number of countywide drug overdoses since 2019. The original version gave incorrect totals.