Commentary:
Everyone’s shouting about crime, but few are quietly offering cogent suggestions.
One critical problem for police, judges, and the public is that someone commits a crime, gets arrested, but must be released because of mental incompetency.
Federal and state constitution’s guarantee folks accused of crimes a fair trial with a lawyer; but if defendant can’t understand the proceedings or help that lawyer, no fair trial is possible. As a sometime municipal judge, I had to let people go, unless they were extremely dangerous. I couldn’t try ‘em. Or incarcerate them or force treatment on them.
These are not issues our local governments can fix.
These are difficult problems. As LCPD Chief Jeremy Story said recently, “Competency is a huge issue. It’s a complex problem.” He mentioned a woman with hundreds of cases – petty misdemeanors such as breaking windows, trespassing, shoplifting – whom he can do nothing about.
We can do better. “You’re incompetent, so skate free!” is no longer a sane option, for defendants or for the community. The state has been trying some promising new ways of getting defendant/addict in a room with therapist early on, using forensic navigators, but those programs are limited.
Other states and the feds authorize competency restoration. The court orders defendant to participate in a program to restore sufficient mental competency to understand the legal proceedings and participate in their defense. This may occur on an in-patient or out-patient basis, or even in jail. It may involve education, mental health treatment, or other efforts, including managing the defendant’s disruptive behaviors or other problems that impede the restoration process. Courts provide a reasonable period of time, such as 6-12 months.
What’s critical is resources: personnel, solid training of that personnel, beds in facilities, etc. Which our flush state can afford, but has been doing poorly on for a while. Governor Martinez destroyed our mental health treatment system, and there are gaping holes in the performance of current state leaders.
Programs in Minnesota, California, and Texas – e.g., both progressive and not – offer models worth looking at.
We might also make better use of our involuntary commitment statute, which authorizes “An interested person who reasonably believes that an adult is suffering from a mental disorder and presents a likelihood of serious harm to the adult's own self or others,” to request the D.A. to investigate whether a thirty-day period of evaluation and treatment is warranted. The D.A. must act within 72 hours. He may petition the court for a hearing. The court issues a summons. “If the proposed client is summoned and fails to appear . . . or appears without having been evaluated, the court may order the proposed client to be detained for evaluation.”
Presumably. “an interested person” could be a friend or relative, a shopkeeper, or anyone with a reason to care about that the proposed patient might do to himself or others. Some say involuntary treatment never works. That’s reasonable, but never say never. Experience shows that sometimes, though the person in need of treatment couldn’t or wouldn’t have asked, an enforced period of contact with caring professionals, free of normal environmental and peer pressures, can trigger an interest in getting clean and well. And the person will be off the street and living a healthier life for a spell.
We must improve our competency law; authorize competency-restoration; invest heavily in personnel and training, statewide; and ensure that all these laws work together.
Peter Goodman's opinions are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of KRWG Public Media or NMSU.