There’s a timeless American Rorschach, a set of ideas meant to have symmetry. They’re called Civil Liberties: originally meaning that we be subject only to laws established for the good of the community… and… and that our individual rights be protected by law from unjust government. Too often an balancing act made to go awry in our times, for certain.
But there is a group of people who surely deserve to be protected from unjust standards in weighing their alleged crimes and sentencings: The mentally unstable, the severely addicted, and those defendants who have ‘retardation.’
Often, the best way to keep justice just is to just question justice:
1. Should defendants suffering from mental illness be treated the same as any other mentally competent defendant in court? Or should there be a special court for defendants suffering from mental disorders that appear to possibly have driven them to their offenses?
2. Is it legal lunacy or legal sanity to arraign and try, via usual court procedures, any individual on, say, misdemeanor charges, when he or she also displays significant signs of inordinate obsession, or compulsion, disorganized thoughts, inability to suppress aggressive impulses, inability to comprehend or follow procedures, delirium tremens, etc., because she or he is, severely mentally unable?
3. Should defendants professionally evaluated as suffering from a significant mental disorder be released on bond and be expected to not re-offend…?
4. …and to also show up for their trial date? Should such defendants be punished by the same standards as those who willfully re-offend and willfully commit another actionable offenses by not showing up for trial?
5. Is it reasoned to release an adjudicated mentally ill defendant on bond and without mental health intervention, and thereby potentially put others and the defendant themselves at risk for more mayhem or injury?
6. Is it legal logic or legal illogic to release a mentally disordered defendant convicted of a crime back out onto the streets after jail or on probation, yet with no intervention or help for their afflictions and addictions which cause continued mind disorganization and disintegration?
The answers more and more jurisdictions are coming to are causing them to create ‘mental health court’ for defendants who suffer from untreated medical and mental disorders.
This unusual step creates ‘a special court aside from usual court’ wherein a defendant’s case is heard… but also the stricken person is given medical and psychological diagnoses, treatments, medicine, education and job assistance…with the idea that this decreases re-offending by giving/ offering some intervention in disabling disorders, increases public safety, and is far more efficient with municipal resources.
The outcome thus far appears to have measurably unburdened municipal courts from long backlogs occurring from large amounts of time needed to process cases of defendants who are mentally unstable. There also appears to be a notable decrease in the number of re-offenses among the formerly mentally unstable.
From the Bureau of Justice Assistance, which has given grants to over 130 municipalities to create Mental Health Courts:
The coordinated delivery of services…includes:
Continuing judicial supervision—including periodic review—over preliminarily qualified offenders with mental illness, mental retardation, or co-occurring mental illness and substance abuse disorders who are charged with misdemeanors and/or nonviolent offenses.
Specialized training of criminal justice personnel to identify and address the unique needs of offenders who are mentally ill or mentally retarded.
Voluntary outpatient or inpatient mental health treatment, in the least restrictive manner appropriate as determined by the court, that carries with it the possibility of dismissal of charges or reduced sentencing on successful completion of treatment.
Centralized case management involving the consolidation of cases that involve mentally ill or mentally disabled defendants (including probation violations) and the coordination of all mental health treatment plans and social services, including life skills training, placement, health care, and relapse prevention for each participant who requires such services.
Continuing supervision of treatment plan compliance for a term not to exceed the maximum allowable sentence or probation for the charged or relevant offense and, to the extent practicable, continuity of psychiatric care at the end of the supervised period.
The idea of some kind of set aside, be that ‘mental health court’ or other effective way to process and assist the ill, is long overdue. It is painful to watch a defendant with the DT-s try to represent themselves, or a defendant with full-blown and unmedicated bi-polar mania, attempting to make a circular argument about “How I did what I didn’t do,” as one truly pitiful, shaking, and confused defendant put it in his less than able defense.
I have questions about ‘who decides’ who is ill or suffers from dementia or ‘retardation,’ and how the scenario might be manipulated by perfectly sane people who are criminals… like the Mafia king feigning mental illness and wandering about New York for years in his bathrobe while blathering…
or manipulation of the system by family members– or enemies — with an agenda for adjudicating as ill someone perfectly compos mentis, or by courts or law enforcement via personal grudges. There would need to be clear constraints and unrelenting oversight to prevent abuse and misuse.
Yet, it seems to make little sense to know that many defendants so badly in need of psychological and medical mental help and not able to defend themselves well, and by letter of law are given harsher sentences often, only to — un-medicated, undiagnosed — come out and re-offend almost immediately… And again. And again.
It may be as important to look at ‘mental health court’ as an act of mercy, the same kind of mercy we’d give if we discovered someone bleeding … Before we did anything else, we’d first tend to and bind up the wound.
But also, mental health court seems equally merciful to the innocent public, the ones most likely to be harmed when an ill person or a person with not full mental capacity suddenly takes a right angle turn from the broad consensual reality in a way that endangers or harms.
You can read more about The Mental Health Court Program, here at the Bureau of Justice Assistance Site, including an updated list of municipalities they’ve given grants to for the development of ‘mental health court.’ Also, press on “about BJA.”