Story Photos
 Photo courtesy of Marvin Shull of Skydive Toledo Accompanied by instructor Johnny Anderson, Cowlitz County Superior Court Judge Jill Johanson gives a double thumbs-up during her sky-dive Saturday. |
Drug Court judge's natural high
Tuesday, June 26, 2007 6:48 AM PDT
By Leslie Slape
Printable version
E-mail this articleJust call her Jumping Judge Jill.
Judge Jill Johanson, who oversees Drug Court, says she would do anything to motivate people to get off drugs. Drug Court allows inmates to defer jail time if they kick the drug habit.
"She said if I graduate, she'd come sky-dive with me," Michael D. Martin of Kelso said Monday. "It was inspiration for me to graduate, because I was kind of messing up. I really wanted to change my life."
He's not the first Drug Court participant to challenge Johanson to a sky-dive if he graduated, but he's the first one who was able to collect. It's a strict program, and many participants fail.
Martin, 24, has made about 500 jumps since he was 13 years old. His grandfather, also named Michael Martin, founded Skydive Toledo in 1971, and young Martin began packing parachutes when he was 11.
"Everybody should make at least one sky-dive," he said.
Jumping out of planes is easy for him, but kicking drugs was hard. He entered Drug Court in March 2005 and spent 22 months in the program overcoming an addiction to methamphetamine. He graduated in February.
When a person is enrolled in Drug Court, they undergo 15 months of supervised treatment for drug and alcohol addiction, must submit to frequent drug testing and face sanctions for relapses.
"It really worked," he said. "I couldn't ask for more. I'm still working (as an ironworker), still clean and sober. It gave me a chance to get my life back."
"He graduated and came back and asked me, 'Are you going to do it?' " Johanson said Monday.
She, Martin and his drug counselor, Dan Milliren, drove to Skydive Toledo on Saturday morning.
Was she nervous before the jump?
"Oh yeah," said Martin with a chuckle.
Johanson, 48, chose a tandem sky-dive, one of three training dives offered by Skydive Toledo. She and instructor Johnny "Nine Lives" Anderson were buckled together. Milliren, who also was doing his first jump, did a tandem sky-dive just before Johanson leaped. They were in free fall to about 5,000 feet above the ground, when the instructors opened their parachutes.
Free fall was "a blast," Johanson said.
"It was really an amazing experience. You just have to trust your life in another human being, and that is a really cool feeling."
During free fall, Martin caught up with her in midair and grabbed her hand while the staff photographer, Marvin Shull, snapped pictures.
Johanson wants to jump again.
"I loved the free-falling," she said. "I have a need for speed, and that actually satisfied it."
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