Veterans Courts Help Save Veterans' Lives

Justice should be blind to litigants’ wealth, power, influence, creed, and ethnicity; but maybe she should be compassionate concerning trauma, addiction, and mental health. I don’t mean falling for every defendant’s claim that childhood troubles made him/her do it; but openness to looking behind conduct for causes, and maybe approaching solutions.

We know jailing every addict, vagrant, and emotionally-challenged person who breaks the law doesn’t work. The same people shuffle in, hear the same stern judicial lecture, then go back to prison until their terms end and they repeat the process after days or months of “freedom.” Does them no good, costs us plenty.

Increasingly we have mental health courts, drug courts, family reunification courts, and even veterans’ courts. Veterans are a particularly tragic subset of defendants: many risked their lives for us, some in hellholes such as Khe Sanh and Fallujah; few returned unscathed, and some return very troubled, many suffering from PTSD. Some try coping through substance abuse.

Las Cruces Veterans Court gives them a chance. Qualified “clients” convicted of crimes enter a modified 12-step program in which close supervision and judicial encouragement buttress clients’ determination to address the root problem in a meaningful way. Clients experience both group and individual therapy, surveillance, and “the black-robe effect.” As they progress through a series of modules / phases, their peers judge with unique keenness their accounts of progress and their plans. They also periodically meet with a judge, the rare authority figure who takes a genuine interest in their recovery and their lives, not just their transgressions.

Here, The Hon. James Martin is that judge. A vet himself, somewhat conservative, and a former federal prosecutor, he wasn’t looking for touchy-feely new-age ideas when he became a judge sixteen years ago. When a more senior judge asked him to handle juvenile drug court, Martin viewed that as a court where “a judge would hold a crook by the hand and lead him through recovery,” and thought, “No! No! No! Doesn’t work. Not my job.” But after Judge Robles told him, “just trust it,” Martin attended seminars, talked to the treatment manager and public defenders, and found that the process seemed to work. “The kids helped me,” he says of his four years handling that court.

Once while Martin was paying for gas in Tularosa, a bystander said, “Judge, you don’t remember me, but . . .” then thanked Judge Martin for helping him go from law-breaking kid to a skilled tradesman who was now a father and a successful business-owner, employing others. That wasn’t Martin’s only such experience.

These specialty courts work. Adult Drug Court’s 448 graduates have a 7.7% recidivism rate, compared with 64% for released prisoners. It takes the proverbial village, including court staff, surveillance officers, the Community of Hope, prosecutors and defense counsel, plus other defendants. Clients “have to be ready for recovery,” but if they are, the village can help. Veterans’ court was added because while drug courts don’t take violent offenders, veterans’ PTSD or addiction often sparks violence. Each vet also has a mentor, not involved in his treatment, analogous to an AA sponsor.

I asked how Martin’s work with such courts had changed him. He said it “absolutely” had. “I used to have a less complicated vision of the world. Now the empathy I’m showing has added more shades of grey and more colors to the palette in my view of life.”

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[The above column appeared this morning, Sunday, 5 September 2021, in the Las Cruces Sun-News, as well as on the newspaper's website and KRWG's website. A related radio commentary will air during the week on KRWG (90.7 FM) and KTAL-LP. (101.5 FM – http://www.lccommunityradio.org/), and will presently be available on demand on KRWG’s site.]

[ We need to support and expand “specialty courts.” They save unnecessary costs, both human and financial. If a minor crime resulted from mental impairment and addiction, and the person who committed it is serious about dealing with the root problem, yeah, it costs us something to facilitate that, but meanwhile we’re saving on jail costs; and the savings compound, in that rather than paying to house and feed me in jail, the authorities are keeping me out where I can work, be there for my kids, pay taxes, and begin or continue being a functioning member of the community contributing to its welfare. When you factor in the human and financial costs of the public taking care of abandoned kids, and the fact that most prisoners return to prison over and over, you’re not just talking what we save this year, but over decades of a person’s life. And that 7.7% vs. 64% is a pretty powerful statistic, particularly when we note that the court accepts high-risk participants. (I also learned from Court Administrator Sylvia Herrera that our adult drug court was one of the first in the nation, and has functioned successfully since 1998.) ]

"The Tippler"   © peter goodman