County judge becomes 3rd to recommend a woman for Boot Camp

Because Wyoming’s Boot Camp is only open to male offenders, it is unclear how the Department of Corrections will respond to Rumpke’s request.

In addition to recommending Boot Camp, Rumpke sentenced Mariah Gomez, 23, last week to two to three years in prison after she violated probation for a drug endangered child charge she received in 2014.

At her sentencing, Gomez’s lawyer, Steven Titus, asked that Rumpke recommend Boot Camp. Deputy Campbell County Attorney Nathan Henkes objected and argued that Gomez should serve her entire sentence at the Women’s Center, the state’s only prison for female offenders.

In a recent interview, Titus said Gomez is an ideal candidate for Boot Camp because she didn’t commit a violent crime, no longer uses meth, is young and is remorseful. “Now she just needs the skills necessary to be a functioning member of society,” he said.

The County Attorney’s Office declined to comment because Gomez’s case is still active.

Boot Camp, which is officially known as the Youthful Offender Program, is a six-month rehabilitation program in Newcastle during which first-time male offenders under 25 complete educational, therapeutic and physical activities. Those who finish the program are often released on probation or to a halfway house instead of returning to prison for the remainder of their sentences.

“It is a travesty to the citizens of Wyoming that young women aren’t being given the same opportunities as young men,” Titus said.

In May 2017, a Sublette County judge became the first to recommend Boot Camp for a woman when he did so for Taylor Blanchard, 24, who had violated probation for delivery of meth.

In December, a Laramie County judge requested that a Gillette woman, Samantha Taylor, attend Boot Camp as part of her sentence. Taylor, 21, was sentenced to two to four years in prison for drug possession and is currently incarcerated at the Women’s Center.

Blanchard, with support from the ACLU of Wyoming, sued the Department of Corrections in July, alleging that her inability to attend Boot Camp violated her constitutional rights. She said that because she couldn’t participate in Boot Camp, she would serve six to 10 years in prison, while if she were a man, she could have attended Boot Camp and would have likely had her prison sentence reduced to six months.

Blanchard was eventually sent to a women’s Boot Camp in Florida, which she completed in January. A judge then ordered that her prison sentence be suspended in favor of five years probation, which she is serving in Sublette County.

Although Blanchard ended up attending a boot camp program, she continued her lawsuit, arguing that sending her out of state was discriminatory because she was far from family and friends and because Florida’s camp was shorter — and therefore less rehabilitative — than Wyoming’s.

However, in February, a federal judge dismissed her lawsuit, asserting that because she had completed the camp and had her sentence reduced, she no longer had standing to sue. The judge also dismissed the ACLU’s attempt to add 15 women, who are serving time at the Women’s Center but meet the criteria for Boot Camp, to the lawsuit. The federal judge said that the women weren’t similar enough to Blanchard to join the suit.

ACLU lawyer Stephen Pevar filed an appeal to the federal judge’s decision several weeks ago. He asserted that the decision to dismiss the case was wrong because sending Blanchard out of state to an inferior program still violated her rights.

Pevar also is filing individual motions on behalf of each of the 15 other women, asking their sentencing judges to consider recommending them for Boot Camp. “No one has been considering women for Boot Camp, which is just terrible,” he said.

Gomez and Taylor are not among the 15 women, but their lawyers have spoken with the ACLU, which may get involved in their cases, Pevar said.