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VETERANS' COURTS BEING EYED IN
PENNSYLVANIA AND
ARIZONA -- Veterans' courts would provide options
such as
counseling and medical treatment instead of jail
time.
For more about the trend toward veterans' courts,
use the VA Watchdog search engine... click here...
http://www.yourvabenefits.org/sessear
ch.php?q=veterans+courts&op=ph
We have two stories.
First story here...
http://www.pittsburghlive.co
m/x/valleyindependent/teenscene/s_605775.html
Story below:
Your comments accepted at bottom of
page.
Share story/email link.
-------------------------
County eyes veterans' court
By Mike Cronin
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Allegheny County judges hope to set up the state's first court devoted to
military veterans who get into trouble with the law.
Veterans court would provide options such as counseling and medical
treatment -- instead of jail time -- for veterans who commit misdemeanors,
said Common Pleas Judge Michael E. McCarthy, a county civil judge.
"This would help veterans who have suffered difficulties due to their
military service," said McCarthy, 58, who served as a Navy Seabee
 during
the Vietnam War. Those difficulties could include post-traumatic stress
disorder and alcohol and drug addiction, he said.
Such alternative courts are aimed at nonviolent offenders whose violations
stem from mental illness, substance abuse, or in the case of veterans,
PTSD. Instead of incarceration, they offer treatment programs to tackle
the underlying causes of criminal behavior.
Allegheny County set up a mental health court in 2001 that places mentally
ill people charged with nonviolent crimes with community social services.
The rate of repeat offenders goes down when people participate in
alternative courts, said Amy Kroll, director of justice-related services
in the county Department of Human Services.
"Alternative courts give individuals a way to recover their lives," Kroll
said. "The answer is treatment, treatment and more treatment."
A 2007 RAND Corp. study of the county mental health court showed that only
14 percent of participants committed a crime after going through the
program. The recidivism rate for the general population of inmates is 67
percent, the report said.
Alternative courts can save taxpayers money, too. A 2003 National
Institute of Justice study that compared a drug court in Multnomah County,
Ore., to criminal adjudication showed the drug-court model saved the
public more than $2,300 per year for each participant.
The VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System could provide care, if necessary, and
fellow veterans would serve as mentors to those appearing before the
court, McCarthy said.
"That way, rather than just be adjudicated, we can try to address the
problem," McCarthy said. "And veterans seem to respond to each other."
 Some
of the mentors will come from the Veterans Leadership Program of Western
Pennsylvania in the South Side.
"We're going to call on some of those we've assisted through the years to
come back and help those that need their help right now," said Albert
Mercer, the leadership program's executive director.
Officials in Erie County, N.Y., started what they believe to be the
nation's first veterans court a year ago, said acting Erie County Judge
Robert Russell. Others now exist in Anchorage, Alaska; Orange County,
Calif.; and Tulsa, Okla.
"We took the approach that if we have a judicially oversighted treatment
program, maybe we can change their behavior -- get them clean and sober
and become productive members of society instead of a burden on society,"
Russell said.
It's too early for any data to exist on the effectiveness of veterans
courts, Russell said.
Karen Blackburn, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's coordinator for
problem-solving courts in Harrisburg, visited Russell's court in Buffalo
with McCarthy. The Allegheny County program could serve as a statewide
model, she said.
State Rep. Don Walko, D-North Side, said he requested a $25,000 state
grant to fund a case manager for the veterans court "who will help them
get into the right treatment programs."
The first step is to set up a task force and determine a method to
identify defendants who are veterans, said Common Pleas Judge John A.
Zottola, a criminal judge who presides over the county's mental health
court. He said he hopes to have the program running by June.
Mike Cronin can be reached at
mcronin@tribweb.com or 412-320-7884.
-------------------------
Second story here...
http://www.azcentral.com/arizo
narepublic/news/articles/2009/01/06/2009010
6veteranscourt1226.html
Story below:
-------------------------
New court is sought to aid
vets charged with crimes
by JJ Hensley
The Arizona Republic
For four years, Cody Batroff was a trained killer fighting for his
country.
The former Marine served two tours in Iraq, taking out the enemy and
ducking roadside bombs.
Although he excelled on the battlefield, the 26-year-old Phoenix resident
had trouble readjusting to civilian life.
"You go from killing people to cutting grass, and that's a reality check,"
he said.
He was arrested five times in two years, culminating with a DUI and a
disorderly conduct charge for what he nonchalantly describes as "standing
in my front yard with a firearm, yelling and screaming."
Batroff is serving five months in a Maricopa County jail. Although he
won't blame his incarceration on his military service, experts have linked
anti-social and criminal behavior with post-traumatic stress disorder
(PTSD) and traumatic brain injuries suffered by soldiers fighting in Iraq
and Afghanistan.
Batroff was diagnosed with both.
Court officials recognize a need to treat these soldiers before they get
caught up in a cycle of crime.
A coalition of legal officials and advocates for veterans in Maricopa
County is considering setting up a special court that would provide vets
with the help they need to cope.
That could mean identifying veterans early in the system, connecting them
to services the government already provides and linking the vets to a
support network.
The goal: Keeping them out of the criminal-justice cycle.
Growing problem
Veterans advocates, along with judges and attorneys, have launched similar
specialty courts in Buffalo, N.Y.; and Orange County, Calif.
Studies have shown that 30 to 40 percent of the 1.6 million troops who
have served in Iraq and Afghanistan will "face serious mental-health
injuries" such as PTSD or traumatic brain injury.
Because they have no visible scars of war, victims of those ailments
frequently suffer in silence, said Shelly Curran, director of court
advocacy with Magellan, which manages the public mental-health system in
Maricopa County.
The disorders can lead to higher rates of divorce, drug and alcohol abuse
and ultimately incarceration or suicide, she said.
"A lot of what brings veterans into contact with the criminal-justice
system is the result of injuries they received while they were serving;
their behaviors are so tied to whatever that service-related injury could
be," Curran said. "There's a stigma around seeking services, especially
when you come from a culture where it's important to be strong. It's less
likely for veterans to ask for help."
The idea behind the veterans court is to identify former soldiers and get
them the help they deserve, Curran said.
The exploratory group, headed by retired Superior Court Judge Kenneth
Fields, is looking at the court system in Buffalo, which identifies and
diverts veterans who commit misdemeanor offenses into a program that
offers them counseling and other support services for a time and allows
the soldiers to plead to a lesser crime.
It will be months before the committee here gets through the exploratory
phase, and it could be longer before veterans advocates, court officials
and prosecutors develop the framework to start a similar court here.
The committee is trying to determine how many veterans, such as Batroff,
are locked up in Maricopa County. That figure is hard to come by, largely
because officials generally don't ask the question until the defendant is
sentenced, if then.
However, a snapshot of adults going through probation in the county during
the first six months of last year found that more than 400 people, or more
than 7 percent, had served in the armed forces.
With nearly 600,000 veterans in Arizona, experts say, those numbers will
likely increase as more return home from the wars.
"One of the things that offended me is seeing a veteran who is
self-medicating with alcohol or marijuana or meth and going to court and
standing side by side with some gangbanger or lifetime criminal and being
treated the same as them," said Billy Little, an attorney and retired Air
Force colonel. "If you can tie the alleged criminal activity to their
service, to us, I thought they deserved better than that."
Little, along with others in the legal community, have pushed for the
specialty-court idea and worked with Superior Court Presiding Judge
Barbara Mundell to launch the effort.
Next steps
The exploratory committee, which includes representatives from the courts,
adult probation, veterans advocates, mental-health providers and the
Maricopa County Attorney's Office, hope to present a proposal to Mundell
by summer. Fields said the courts likely would not come at any additional
costs to the court system.
Although the idea has support among veterans advocates and court
officials, it's not a slam dunk.
The County Attorney's Office has questioned whether a suspect deserves to
be treated any differently because he or she served in the military and
whether the court would work with those who commit serious felonies or
only lower-level crimes.
County Attorney Andrew Thomas' office has consistently come out against
specialty courts, such as a Spanish-language DUI court, that offer
services to certain suspects. But the office has not determined its stance
on a potential veterans court.
"Justice is supposed to be blind," said Barnett Lotstein, a special
assistant county attorney. "We have great respect for our veterans,
obviously. If it can be shown that a veterans court is not only in the
interest of the defendants and the body public, there may be some benefit,
unlike the race-based courts, which we are absolutely opposed."
Courts elsewhere
In upstate New York, Erie County residents have come to expect low-level
offenders to get diverted to one of Buffalo's specialty courts if the
suspects qualify, said Judge Robert Russell, who presides over the
veterans court.
"Whether they realize it or not, they're already seeing veterans," Russell
said. "The issue is: Do you design a program that meets the needs of that
culture?"
That might have helped Batroff.
Although the Washington High School graduate was diagnosed with
post-traumatic stress disorder and a frontal-lobe injury and even helped
start a PTSD-support group at the Carl T. Hayden VA Medical Center, it
didn't stop him from acting out.
Counseling and other forms of treatment might have helped, Batroff admits,
but those aren't readily available to county inmates.
"I got thrown in here, so I didn't get to finish all that stuff," he said.
"Of course, certain sounds are going to make me think of a rocket, or
people coming up behind me are going to make me twitch. It's not like high
school: You get out and graduate and it's over."
-------------------------
posted by Larry Scott
Founder and Editor
VA Watchdog dot Org
-------------------------
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