The Thai Monks DUI Defense
June 9, 2017 § 1 Comment
From the USA Today, June 5, 2017:
ROCHESTER, N.Y. — An embattled City Court judge was escorted Monday from judicial chambers in handcuffs.
Rochester court deputies and city police officers executed a bench warrant issued for Judge Leticia Astacio’s arrest last week after she missed a Tuesday court appearance related to an August drunken-driving conviction.
Astacio, a Rochester City Court judge, smiled and said hello to the gaggle of reporters waiting for her at the fifth floor elevator bank of the Monroe County Hall of Justice where officers marched her off to be processed at the nearby Rochester Public Safety Building. She returned later to the courthouse for an arraignment before Judge Stephen Aronson of Canandaigua City Court, who issued the warrant and is overseeing her drunken-driving case.
He ordered her held without bail in Monroe County Jail until a Thursday hearing. The reason she missed her court appearance last week was because she had been living in a temple with monks in the mountains of Thailand since May 3, she had texted to her lawyer.
“You’re doing everything to show you don’t care what happens to your public trust,” Aronson said.
In court Monday, Aronson offered Astacio a deal: Plead guilty to violating her initial drunk-driving sentence and receive 45 days in jail, two years of probation and six months on an ankle monitor. She declined and was ordered to jail.
“You’re doing everything to show you don’t care what happens to your public trust.”
On Feb. 13, 2016, Astacio was arrested around 8 a.m. ET on her way to City Court after New York state troopers were summoned to what appeared to be a one-car crash Interstate 490. She refused to take a Breathalyzer test
On Aug. 22, she was sentenced to a one-year conditional discharge that was extended to February 2018 after she admitted violating two conditions: abstaining from alcohol and not driving under the influence.
Astacio, a Democrat who was elected to a 10-year term in 2014, also was in court in March when she beat four allegations that she violated the conditions of her sentence. One alleged that she twice drank alcohol, and three others were related to the use and maintenance of her ignition interlock device, which prevents a vehicle from starting if a driver has had too much to drink.
In May, Astacio was summoned to court after her interlock device on April 29 registered a blood-alcohol-content reading of 0.0651%. A vehicle will start only if a person’s blood-alcohol content is below 0.03%.
Astacio, who worked as a prosecutor for a time in 2009 in the Driving While Intoxicated Bureau of the Monroe County District Attorney’s Office, denied consuming alcohol and contended that her daughter had registered the reading, said her lawyer, Ed Fiandach. It is not illegal for another person to drive a car outfitted with an interlock device meant for someone else.
After the reading, which Fiandach said occurred near the beginning of May, Aronson asked that Astacio take a urine test that detects ethyl glucuronide, a byproduct of alcohol, and submit the results to the court. She did not, so she was summoned to court Tuesday and did not appear because she was in Thailand.
Why Astacio had not been arrested when she returned to the United States over the weekend was not immediately clear. She had told Fiandach that she had bought a one-way ticket to Thailand and would be there until some time in August.
She returned to Rochester because her supervising judge, Justice Craig Doran of the New York State Supreme Court, had directed she attend a 9 a.m. Monday meeting in his office at the Monroe County Hall of Justice, expressing concern in a letter that her behavior constituted a “voluntary abandonment of public office” that would be deemed a breach of her judicial responsibilities if she failed to show up.
“You are self-sabotaging any chance you have to return to the bench,” Aronson said in court, telling Astacio that her attitude appeared to be contemptuous.
Though she still receives her paycheck, Astacio has been prohibited from presiding over cases since before her drunken driving conviction in August and has been barred from entering non-public areas of the courthouse since November. She has continued to receive her $173,700 salary because she remains an elected judge.
Astacio will again be working for her pay upon her release from jail — whenever that may be.
Her supervisors, state Supreme Court Judge Craig Doran and City Court Judge Teresa Johnson, told Astacio Monday that she will required to conduct research in the courthouse law library Monday through Friday, whenever court is in session.
__________________________
A few thoughts:
- Salary of $173,700 for a municipal judge. Wow. She’s definitely not in Mississippi.
- A one-way ticket to Thailand?
- Let me know if that “living in a temple with monks in the mountains of Thailand” defense works in any Mississippi court, will you?
The Immune System
May 2, 2017 § Leave a comment
It’s not often that a judge is sued for some action he or she took in the course of performing official duties. But it does happen, and the most recent case was decided by the MSSC in Weill v. Bailey, on April 6, 2017. In that case, a circuit judge, Weill, was sued by a former employee, Bailey, over language the judge had included about her in a judgment, which language she claimed to be libelous. The special judge assigned to the case refused to grant Weill’s motion to dismiss, and he appealed. The MSSC reversed and remanded for a dismissal judgment.
Since Justice Coleman’s opinion sets out an exposition of the law on the point, I am posting it here because you might find it useful:
¶18. Mississippi has long recognized the doctrine of judicial immunity. Wheeler v. Stewart, 798 So. 2d 386, 392 (¶ 14) (Miss. 2001). The Court has declared that “public policy mandates that a judge should have the power to make decisions without having to worry about being held liable for his actions.” Id. (quoting Loyacono v. Ellis, 571 So. 2d 237, 238 (Miss. 1990)). Indeed, the Court “fully recognizes that the best interests of the people and public order require that judges be immune from civil liability.” Loyacono, 571 So. 2d at 238.
¶19. The Loyacono Court recognized that the United States Supreme Court addressed the doctrine of judicial immunity in Stump v. Sparkman, 435 U.S. 349 (1978). The Stump Court held that “judges of courts of superior or general jurisdiction are not liable to civil actions for their judicial acts, even when such acts are in excess of their jurisdiction, and are alleged to have been done maliciously or corruptly.” Stump, 435 U.S. at 355-56 (quoting Bradley v. Fisher, 80 U.S. 335, 351 (1871)).
¶20. In Loyacono, an attorney filed suit against a circuit court judge contending that, as a direct and proximate result of the willful, intentional, or negligent acts of the circuit court judge, he was falsely prosecuted, arrested, incarcerated, and denied due process. Loyacono, 571 So. 2d at 237. The trial court granted the circuit court judge’s motion to dismiss, finding that the doctrine of judicial immunity protected the circuit court judge even if he was motivated by malice. Id. The Court affirmed. Id. at 239.
¶21. The Loyacono Court acknowledged that, while the holding in DeWitt v. Thompson, 7 So. 2d 529, 532 (Miss. 1942) [Fn 3], seemed to leave open the door as to whether judicial immunity applies in the face of malice, “[p]ublic policy mandates that a judge should have the power to make decisions without having to worry about being held liable for his actions, and, thankfully, most judges do not exhibit the type of behavior we find in this instance.” Loyacono, 571 So. 2d at 238. Accordingly, the “Court fully recognizes that the best interests of the people and public order require that judges be immune from civil liability. There are other remedies [Fn 4] for the correction of such behavior.” Id.
[Fn 3]:
In DeWitt v. Thompson, 7 So. 2d 529, 532 (Miss. 1942), the Court stated:
In [Bradley] the [United States Supreme] Court went farther, and held that courts of general jurisdiction are not liable to civil actions for their judicial acts, when such acts are in excess of their jurisdiction, and are charged to have been done maliciously or corruptly. We do not go that far in this case, because, as stated, there was no showing of either corruption or excess of jurisdiction.
[Fn 4]:
“The primary remedy available to those who believe a judge has acted either contrary to or in excess of his/her authority is to file a complaint with the [Mississippi Judicial Performance] Commission.” Mississippi Comm’n of Judicial Performance v. Russell, 691 So. 2d 929, 947 (Miss. 1997).
¶22. The Loyacono Court stated: “There is a distinction between excess of jurisdiction and a complete absence of jurisdiction.” Id. “Where there is clearly no jurisdiction over the subject-matter any authority exercised is a usurped authority, and for the exercise of such authority, when the want of jurisdiction is known to the judge, no excuse is permissible.” Bradley, 80 U.S. at 351-52. Thus, “[t]he key factor in determining whether judicial immunity exists is whether at the time the judge took the challenged action he had jurisdiction over the subject matter before him.” Wheeler, 798 So. 2d at 392 (¶ 15).
¶23. Bailey argues that Judge Weill is not afforded judicial immunity because his actions were taken in a complete absence of jurisdiction. Bailey contends that Judge Weill had no jurisdictional authority over her individually when he entered the February 2015 orders. However, the question is not whether Judge Weill had jurisdiction over Bailey, individually; the inquiry is “whether at the time the judge took the challenged action he had jurisdiction over the subject matter before him.” See id. (emphasis added).
¶24. The challenged act is the entry of the February 2015 orders disposing of Kelly’s motions to recuse and for clarification in multiple criminal cases. Judicial immunity exists in the present case because at the time Judge Weill entered the February 2015 orders, he had jurisdiction over the multiple criminal matters before him.
¶25. Bailey’s complaint and amended complaint did not allege that Judge Weill lacked jurisdiction over the criminal matters in which he entered the February 2015 orders. Thus, there is no dispute that, at the time Judge Weill entered the February 2015 orders in his capacity as circuit court judge, he had jurisdiction over the criminal matters before him. Instead, Bailey argues that Judge Weill’s statement that she had been reprimanded forimproper ex parte communications in the February 2015 orders was neither necessary or relevant to the issue before Judge Weill. However, the Court has not recognized a relevance exception to the judicial immunity doctrine. “In order to determine the existence of judicial
immunity one must look to whether at the time the judge took the challenged action he had jurisdiction over the subject matter before him.” Loyacono, 571 So. 2d at 238 (citing Stump, 435 U.S. at 356). It is of no consequence that the February 2015 orders disposing of a motion in criminal matters properly before him included a factual finding that mentioned Bailey.
¶26. Bailey also argues that Judge Weill lost his judicial immunity because his alleged defamation of her constituted a nonjudicial act made in the clear absence of all jurisdiction. However, the Loyacono Court rejected the argument that allegations of malice remove the protection of judicial immunity.
¶27. We hold that the trial court erred by failing to grant Judge Weill’s motion to dismiss Bailey’s complaint and amended complaint based on judicial immunity.
CONCLUSION
¶28. The Court has held that judges of courts of general jurisdiction are not liable to civil actions for their judicial acts, even when such acts are in excess of their jurisdiction, and are alleged to have been done maliciously or corruptly. Loyacono, 571 So. 2d at 238. Here, Judge Weill entered the February 2015 orders disposing of the public defender’s motions to recuse and for clarification in four criminal matters that were properly before him. Even though Bailey alleged that the language contained in the orders contained libelous language, Judge Weill is afforded judicial immunity from Bailey’s civil action because at the time he entered the February 2015 orders, he had jurisdiction over the subject matter before him. See id; Wheeler, 798 So. 2d at 392 (¶ 14). As a result, the Court reverses the trial court’s order and remands the case for further proceedings consistent with the Court’s opinion.
Justice King, joined by Justice Kitchens, specially concurred, agreeing with the result in this particular case but cautioning that in another fact situation the role of malice in the judge’s use of language needs to be addressed.
Should State Judges be Appointed?
December 15, 2016 § 7 Comments
Phillip Thomas addresses the question of appointed vs. elected judges in a post on his Mississippi Litigation Review and Commentary blog earlier this month. The post was based on a Clarion-Ledger article.
One point of alarm to Mr. Thomas is a survey showing that 50% of judges believed contributions to judicial candidates do influence decisions. As for me, as a state trial judge, I have never been asked to participate in such a survey, or, at least, I have never responded to such a survey if the opportunity were actually presented. So let me say for myself that I do not believe that contributions influence trial court decisions, but I do believe that they certainly do give reasonable people reason to believe that they do. The statistics reported by the Clarion-Ledger bear that out.
One of the many flaws of an elected judiciary is that it forces judges and judicial candidates to have to raise money to run. There is no such thing as a successful election campaign without adequate funds to pay for signs, advertising, and all the other trappings necessary to get one’s name out to the electorate and to energize them to vote. With money comes at least the appearance of influence. Lawyers know and understand that no judicial candidate can solicit or accept contributions directly; that must be done through an independent committee, and the candidate is not supposed to be allowed access to the financial reports. I am confident that the public, however, does not understand this. Some other drawbacks:
- Judicial candidates should only be able to promise to be fair, to be dedicated, and to follow the law. Yet, we hear candidates promising to be tough on crime and criminals, or to be friends of law enforcement, when the job of a judge may demand setting a prisoner loose, or to rule against law enforcement officers. A judge really has no friend other than the law itself when called upon to rule.
- Voters in this part of the world can be swayed to vote against “liberal” judges, and to vote for “conservative” judges without really understanding what those terms imply in practice in our courts. Is a judge “liberal” because he sets aside a clearly erroneous guilty verdict? Or is he doing exactly what the law requires of him? And is she “conservative” because she denies custody to a drug-addicted mother? Or is she doing exactly what the law requires of her?
- PACS have introduced vicious attack ads into our judicial races. Lawyers view them critically and get the misleading and often false accusations. But voters pummeled with attack ad after attack ad often figure that where there’s smoke …
- Our judicial races have become non-partisan in name only. I leave it to you to consider the evidence and draw your own conclusions.
There are other flaws in the judicial election process that you can add for yourself.
So, is the solution to appoint state judges? At first blush, that would appear a viable solution. After all, it works arguably well at the federal level. Life appointment in federal court assures judicial independence. With the advice and consent of the Senate as a check, the federal judiciary remains for the most part balanced. It could possibly work the same way at the state level, but here are some concerns:
- In a one-party system such as we have in Mississippi, the governor pretty much gets to appoint whomever he chooses. A corrupt governor could turn judicial appointments into a cash cow (Note: this statement is purely hypothetical; I am not referring to any past, present, or future governor(s)).
- Favoritism and political affiliation can overrule merit and experience.
- An appointing authority with an agenda can ensure that he or she will have enough votes on the appellate court to enact it. That’s less of an issue at the trial level, but it’s a possibility.
Again, there are other flaws in an appointed system, too.
Some states have tried to neutralize the negatives of appointments by limiting the governor’s appointing authority to a panel of qualified candidates nominated by a blue-ribbon panel. That does not rule out some of the negatives mentioned above.
Other states have tried to strike a medium by providing for initial election or appointment for a term, and then requiring the incumbent to stand for a “retention” election at the conclusion of the term. If the vote is more than 50% to retain, then the incumbent continues in office; if less than 50%, then he or she stands for re-election with likely opposition. An obvious negative is that it replaces one election with two, with all the concomitant equipage of elections.
Still other states have employed variations on the foregoing themes. All have admirable as well as questionable qualities.
Bottom line is that there is no clear-cut, most advantageous approach.
In 1817, when the debate first arose over what form of judicial selection would be most likely to ensure judicial independence and integrity in our Mississippi courts. The decision back then, and in every successive constitutional debate, has been to retain the elected judiciary.
Judge Reeves on HB 1523
July 11, 2016 § 2 Comments
You may find it useful in your family practice to have a copy of U.S. District Judge Carlton W. Reeves’s opinion in Barber, et al. v. Bryant, et al., handed down June 30, 2016. Here is a link to it.
This is the suit that asked for an injunction against enforcement or of HB 1523, also colloquially known as the “Religious Freedom Bill,” that in essence left it to individual conscience and judgment whether to follow the law. It was to have gone into effect July 1, 2016, by its terms. Judge Reeves’s ruling is that it is unconstitutional, and, therefore, unenforceable. His conclusion paragraph states:
Religious freedom was one of the building blocks of this great nation, and after the nation was torn apart, the guarantee of equal protection under law was used to stitch it back together. But HB 1523 does not honor that tradition of religion freedom, nor does it respect the equal dignity of all of Mississippi’s citizens. It must be enjoined.
As of this writing, it is unclear whether the governor, attorney general, or other defendants will appeal, or who would bear that expense, but it seems unlikely, in my opinion, that the Fifth Circuit would overturn the ruling.
[Update: Since this was written, Gov. Bryant has announced that he intends to appeal.]
So Long to Sue
March 31, 2016 § 3 Comments
Sue Franklin took the position of Court Administrator in Lauderdale County on February 24, 1986. Her tenure ends today with her retirement at the close of business, after more than thirty years’ service in the position.
Attorneys, paralegals, secretaries, office staff, and judges who dealt with her will, I am confident, attest to how helpful, cheerful, and accommodating she has been. One of her salient qualities is that Sue never takes anything too seriously, unless it comes to protecting the time and security of her judges, and then she goes into full-court-press mode.
Sue has been: paper-work-shuffler, quasi-secretary, advisor to confused lawyers and staff, scheduler, commiserator, receptionist, liaison to AOC, and a myriad of other roles that have freed up the chancellors to devote their attention to substantive matters.
We had a going-away reception for Sue Tuesday, and most of the local bar, courthouse personnel, her family, and friends attended. It was festive and fit Sue’s sunny personality. Here is a photo of the cake made especially for the occasion:
Anyone who has ever had any dealings with Sue would agree that the cake is spot-on.
Court administrators did not become state employees until July, 1994, when AOC went into business. Sue and others in similar capacities around Mississippi at the creation helped design the position from scratch. Sue is certainly one of the longest-serving in the job, if not the dean of Mississippi court administrators.
We will miss Sue’s wicked sense of humor, her willingness to roll with the punches, her devotion to her judges and lawyers, and her high spirits.
Best wishes in your retirement, Sue. May you live long and enjoy your freedom to spend time with your children and grandchildren.
Some Talking Points on Firearms in the Courthouse
March 9, 2016 § 12 Comments
- Security is a site-specific issue. Minimum security standards will always be governed by design, traffic, and countless other considerations specific to the site. Questions of the reasonableness of any particular security measure are not capable of being codified on a uniform basis and are best left to those who are charged with the protection of the courthouse and the conduct of proceedings in the courthouse.
- There are many good reasons for banning weapons in courthouse parking lots. In many counties, state inmates and county prisoners are transported by vans, by the dozens, to public courthouse parking areas and marched into the courtroom. This provides the opportunity for armed people to either assist in escape or exact vengeance if they are allowed to be armed in the parking lot.
- Sheriffs are charged with the safekeeping of prisoners and courthouse property. Judges are charged with the orderly administration of justice. Both should have the tools and flexibility to address situations that may arise.
- Some trial require extraordinary security measures. This bill is a blanket prohibition.
- Participants, including jurors, need to know that they are under the protection of the court the moment they enter court property.
- The legislature and other state offices enjoy point-of-entry security, as they should. County workers deserve the same sort of security in their very volatile workplaces.
- Clerks, deputy clerks, bailiffs, and other courthouse workers are often the intended targets of violent reprisals. The courthouse does not become “safe” merely because courtroom proceedings are not taking place.
- Many offices in the courthouse contain significant amounts of cash and are potential robbery targets.
- Historically, mixing armed citizens and criminal defendants has allowed some terrible things to occur in our state and many others.
- Local officials are elected and empowered to solve local problems. This bill attempts to remove from two other constitutional branches of government the power to carry out their respective duties. The legislature is not well-equipped to devise security measures for the many court facilities in this state.
Beam to MSSC
December 29, 2015 § 6 Comments
Chancellor Dawn Beam of Sumrall was appointed yesterday to fill Justice Randy Pierce’s soon-to-be-vacated seat on the MSSC. Her appointment is effective February 15, 2016. She will have to stand for election in November, 2016, as mentioned in yesterday’s post.
Beam’s appointment continues the role of a chancellor on the high court. Pierce was a chancellor before his appointment to the MSSC.
The Jackson Clarion-Ledger’s article on the appointment and Judge Beam’s background are at this link. (You may encounter paywalls and annoying pop-ups and “surveys”)
From this Blog’s perspective, Judge Beam’s appointment is a major positive, since she is a top-notch chancellor, and knowledge of chancery practice and equity sometimes seems a mystery to appellate judges.
I only wish chancellors were not just a token one-seat allocation on each court. A huge portion of Mississippi trial-court practice is in our chancery courts. It’s where most Mississippians experience their everyday contact with our courts — in custody, divorce, probate, property, contract, commitment, and many other issues — that are what chancellors deal with on a regular basis.
And yet, it’s the big-money PI lawyers — defense and plaintiff — and felony-level criminal lawyers, who claim “legitimacy” and elbow aside chancery at the appellate level. That does not exactly serve most Mississippians at the grass-roots level.
We need more chancery representation on the MSSC and COA. Only those who have practiced in chancery court really understand our procedures and how equity operates. So I applaud Judge Beam’s appointment. She will do a superb job on the third floor of the Gartin Justice Building. I only wish we had one more — or a couple more — to give her a little more support.
Maxwell to MSSC
December 28, 2015 § 1 Comment
Reshaping of the MSSC is continuing with the appointment of Judge Jimmy Maxwell of the COA to the high court seat being vacated by Justice David Chandler. The appointment to the North Mississippi District seat, is effective January 1, 2016. Maxwell will have to run in a judicial election in November, 2016.
Chandler’s resignation earlier this month, to assume leadership of the state’s troubled foster-care program, created the vacancy to which Maxwell is appointed. Only the timing is surprising. It was widely known that Justice Chandler did not intend to run again when his term ended in 2016. Multiple sources said that Maxwell intended to run for Chandler’s seat if he did not run again.
One soon-to-be-vacant MSSC seat remains to be filled. Justice Randy Pierce is stepping aside to take over leadership of the Mississippi Judicial College, effective February 1, 2016.
Maxwell’s appointment will in turn mean a vacancy on the COA that will have to be filled from District One, which is the northeastern area of the state.
The Jackson Clarion-Ledger’s article on Judge Maxwell’s appointment is at this link. (You might encounter a paywall and annoyances like pop-ups and “surveys”)
A previous post on changes to the MSSC is here.
All of the 2015 judicial appointees, at both appellate and trial levels, will have to stand for election in 2016. This latest round of appointments, along with previous appointments and other appellate races that are expected to be contested, will make for an interesting judicial election cycle in 2016.
Tie Goes to the Runner
November 3, 2015 § 1 Comment
Aside from the fact that the MSSC was called upon to review a chancellor’s award of $30,110,618 in combined actual and punitive damages and civil penalties under the Consumer Protection Act, the case of In the Matter of Mississippi Medicaid Pharmaceutical Average Wholesale Price Litigation: Sandoz, Inc. vs. State of Mississippi, decided October 26, 2015, is remarkable for the fact that it was affirmed by a divided court, and for how Mississippi handles the precedential value of split decisions.
But before we get to that, this case is also fascinating for the mirror-image approaches that the majority and dissents took toward the chancellors’ conclusions re the evidence.
This was a case in which Sandoz, Inc., a generic drug supplier, provided the State Division of Medicaid with its Average Wholesale Price (AWP) index, purporting to show the cost to pharmacies for drugs wholesaled to them by Sandoz. The chancellor found, however, that the AWP claimed by Sandoz exceeded actual wholesale prices charged to the pharmacies by some 886%, causing the state to overpay for drugs provided under the Medicaid program. The chancellor found that Sandoz was guilty of common-law fraud, and that it violated Mississippi’s Consumer Protection Act, and he assessed damages. The chancellor also denied the state’s claim for attorney’s fees, and its claims that the chancellor improperly calculated damages.
Sandoz and the state both appealed. The MSSC affirmed on both direct and cross-appeals.
Justice Chandler wrote the plurality opinion, joined by Kitchens, King, and Randolph specially concurring. Justices Dickinson and Lamar wrote dissenting opinions that were joined by Pierce and Coleman. Waller did not participate. If you’re counting, the score is Affirm = 4, Dissent = 4, Abstain = 1. If the vote is tied, the decision is affirmed. See Rockett Steel Works v. McIntyre, 15 So. 2d 624 (Miss. 1943) (“Three of the judges of this Court are of the opinion that the judgment of the court below should be affirmed, and three [are] of the opinion that it should be reversed; consequently, that judgment must be, and is affirmed.”).
And this is the point at which it gets interesting. Justice Randolph concurred in the result, but he vigorously argued that the court should not have issued an opinion in the case, but rather should have issued an order merely affirming since there was no majority in agreement to issue a statement of the law on the subject. He cites SCOTUS opinions that support his position holding that split decisions have no precedential value, and concludes by questioning why our court clings to its practice of issuing opinions that can be used as precedent in such cases. I have to say that I find his brief concurring opinion persuasive. I commend it to you.
Justice Lamar’s opinion is also interesting for its recitation of the facts in the record. She calls into question many of the chancellor’s conclusions. The prevailing opinion was ultimately swayed, however, by deference to the trial finder of fact’s conclusions.
This case presents some complicated facts, but it’s worth read for its glimpse into the inner workings of our highest court.
People in the Shadows
August 5, 2015 § 9 Comments
Ghandi is often quoted as having said that “A civilization is measured by how it treats its weakest members.” Hubert Humphrey said, “the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; those who are in the shadows of life; the sick, the needy and the handicapped.”
It’s fashionable today to emphasize personal responsibility over governmental (and taxpayer) responsibility when it comes to the poor, the needy, the elderly, and even children. Government keeps looking for ways to stint on spending on people at the margins.
What those people have in common is that they are our weakest members, and arguably the weakest among them, “in the shadows of life,” are our mentally ill.
If it is true that we are to be measured by how we treat the mentally ill among us, and the moral test of our government is how we treat our mentally ill, then, I must tell you, we fail to measure up, and we fail the moral test.
Our mental heath system in Mississippi is not just broken, it is broke. It is underfunded and not up to the task.
It happens all too often that a chancellor will order a person to be committed to a state hospital one day, only for that same person to be released days or at most a couple of weeks later. The hospital does not have the resources for long-term care. Instead, the patient is admitted, then given enough medication to alleviate the symptoms, resulting in a finding that the patient is no longer a danger to himself and others, and thereby resulting in his release back into the general public. Once back on the street the person stops taking his medication and soon lapses again into being a true danger to himself and others, requiring yet another commitment proceeding, usually at the expense of the family.
Many of the unkempt, confused people you see wandering the streets are mentally ill. They are the castaways who, due to mental illness, have exhausted the support, financial resources, and patience of families and friends, leaving them nowhere to go but the streets. Mental illness impairs judgment and insight. It impairs one’s ability to take care of oneself.
More significantly, the mentally ill can be dangerous. Paranoid schizophrenics can be extremely dangerous, and even murderous. Ask the folks in Lafayette, Louisiana, whether the indisputably mad man who gunned down two innocent women in a cinema was not dangerous.
I once represented parents who had committed their paranoid-schizophrenic son to the state hospital system nearly a dozen times. He threatened to kill them, other family members, and neighbors whenever he was off of his medication. Once in the hospital, with his medication regulated, the voices in his head became more benign, and he calmed down. Then he was released, stopped taking his medication, and the demons soon returned from where the medications had banished them, more furious than ever. The parents feared for their lives, and all our system could offer them was a revolving door. Perhaps a greater level of protection would have been available if the young man actually killed or seriously maimed someone.
Let me be clear that I am not trying to stigmatize or demonize the mentally ill. Not all are dangerous. But we do have to recognize that some are, and that those do pose a threat to public safety.
It is the responsibility of the state to protect the safety of the citizenry, and to provide adequate systems for taking care of those who are so impaired that they can not care for themselves. Yet, we do not do either in Mississippi when it comes to the mentally ill.
The mentally ill have no PAC or voting bloc, as far as I know. They are not invited to, much less welcome at, $500-a-plate political fundraising dinners. We live in a pay-to-play political world, where political clout gets results. The mentally ill have no political clout, and it shows in how we prioritize their needs in our state budget.
Years ago, the standard treatment for such undesirables was to buy them a bus ticket to somewhere far away. Nowadays, we don’t buy the ticket; we simply turn them out onto the street with the hope that they will go somewhere else and be someone else’s problem.
It does not have to be this way. We can fund our mental health system at a level where it can provide an acceptable level of service. It’s the 21st century, after all. We should be at that point.
Or, we can buy bus tickets.
[This post was written before the 60 Minutes piece on this subject was aired last Sunday.]
The Better Chancery Practice Blog 