Roy Exum: The Public Defender And The Mental Health Court

  • Tuesday, May 23, 2017
  • Roy Exum
Roy Exum
Roy Exum

I am holding in my hand a list of the names of 50 very real people who cost the taxpayers of Hamilton County a combined $3,037.090 in incarceration charges before July 2015. These people live in our county and I dare say it is not completely their fault that they were put in the county jail. Each has a professionally-diagnosed mental illness and today, most regretfully, the County Jail is the only mental facility available to most. The names on my list are also each indigent.

Oh, wait! There is another column on the same list of what each has cost the taxpayers since the Hamilton County Mental Health Court began in July of 2015.

Combined – and this number is through February of 2017 because data must be gathered from every source – the list shows the very same mentally-challenged in the 19 months since have collectively cost the taxpayers $0 (zero). Nothing. Nada.

Make sure you follow me because this – in my opinion – is right at the top of the most pressing priority requests on the county’s proposed budget. Almost all the names on the list I am holding are unable to pay for anything, be it bond money or the necessary psychotropic medicines on the street. Yet the reality is they are indeed our society’s most needy and, “What you do to the least of them you do unto me.”

Without their medicines they are unstable, behave outrageously in some cases, yet with the right encouragement, guidance and oversight, they take their medicines regularly and very safely live outside the jail among us. Do you think we should grant the Mental Health Court $500,000 if the county can realize millions in savings every year? My lands, it cost Sheriff Jim Hammond over $60 per day – and that is so conservative it doesn’t come close to house a prisoner whether they have mental issues or not.

Steve Smith, who is doing a wondrous job as the public defender for Tennessee’s 11th Judicial District, and assistant Public Defender Anna Protano-Biggs, actually started the County Mental Health Court in July two years ago. Neither was authorized to do it, asked to do it, gets paid to do it, is thanked for doing it but both relish in helping “about 70 people right now” escape the horrors of jail and stifle the demons that each has been cursed with.

The legal rub is obvious: How can the public defender use the Mental Health Court when any detractor might allege it is to his advantage? It has never happened but the gregarious Smith must guard against such a charge. So the new idea is for Judge Don Poole – proven to be impartial -- to now oversee the Mental Health Court.

For this to work, the public defender has asked the County Commission for $280,000 in this year’s budget. That way Anna Protano-Biggs will leave the public defender’s office to be the full-time director of the Mental Health Court – paid by the county through the court system. There would also be enough money for the first full-time case worker and a “peer advisor” – someone who actually has mental issues they keep in check and who has conquered what has been called “the cycle.”

This is what happens when a person with mental disease – yes, it is definitely a disease – quits taking their medicine. They don’t like the way it tastes, it makes them feel nauseous, it is too hard to get to the clinic, etc. Soon they “act out” and the sheriff’s deputies get involved. They are thrown in the lockup and it is explosive. (Did you know an indigent on a misdemeanor will stay in jail eight times longer than a regular prisoner and the actual cost to the taxpayers is seven-fold?)

In jail a corrections officer cannot, by law, force medicine on anyone. So now comes the challenge of finding a mental hospital, where the prisoner can legally be forced to take their meds. The prisoner returns to normal, appears normal to the judge and is then released. They get out, are poorly supervised and medically-monitored. Many types of mental illness are easy to control but are never curable. “That’s when the cycle starts again,” Smith explained.

Get this: On the list I have in my hand – real people, real names -- a man named F.R. had 40 cycles prior to the beginning of mental health court. Another, R.H., had 39, D.B. had 28, and D.G. had 38. Whoa –Of the 29 cycles by A.S., his cost was $200,036 by himself. Females? K.M made 43 visits (her total cost was $181,202). Another woman, M.H., had 47 cycles at a cost of $126,076

Since July 15, 2015, not one of the names listed above has been in the County Jail or the Silverdale Workhouse. Cost to the taxpayers? $0 (zero)

So, I asked, you have asked for $280,000? What If the County Commission could, in some way, allocate you and Judge Poole $500,000 instead? What happens? Smith grinned and said, “We could easily accomplish twice what we hope. We would get another case worker and another “peer advisor.”

Anna, who has been working as the mental health court director while still carrying a full complement of clients, put it another way. “We could help a lot more people who need help.”

Steve was honest. “We have some patients who let us down … this isn’t a guaranteed 100-percent success rate, remember these people are fragile and they are sick. So we start over and keep trying … it works, I promise.”

I’ll back that promise. I also have such a vivid respect and admiration for the public defenders that I'm assured our worst are getting the best.

* * *

I MET STEVE SMITH for the first time on Monday and let’s admit it – the public defender’s office ain’t exactly a fun part of government. However, Steve Smith, age 48, is a real fun part of justice and let’s never forget he and Anna started the Mental Health Court on no more than a conversation between the two of them.

Everybody from Sheriff Hammond to Mayor Jim Coppinger, every judge in the county, and at least 75 immediate families of the court’s clients are deeply appreciative of what the public defender’s office has done with little public notice, public praise or public thanks. What I discovered in less than an hour was amazing, and startling.

First, there are 31 judicial districts in Tennessee. Do you know which one in all of them has the lowest cost per closed case in the state? That would be Hamilton County ($173.63) compared to Nashville ($247.75), Knoxville ($521.51) and Memphis ($407.76)

Now, look at this. You can go on the web and in a short search see where Davidson County gave its public defender's office $4,946,600 last year. In Shelby County they gave the Memphis Public Defender’s office $7,346,386 last year. In Knox County they gave the Knoxville Public Defender’s office $2,003,680. So what does Hamilton County give to our Public Defender’s office? $683,537, and that is an absolute travesty.

Please, I didn’t ask Steve Smith about this and not once during our visit did he even hint of a disparity but, my heavens, this is unconscionable! County Mayor Coppinger, who must appeal to the County Commission in coming weeks for a tax increase, should draw Steve Smith into his office and see what his department really needs. The ask of $280,000 for the Mental Health Court will return millions in savings but – while we’re about it -- let’s return our public defender’s office to the level Smith and his 19 attorneys are glorifying our city.

* * *

IN THE SPRING of 2012, a graduate of Chattanooga Christian was on his first patrol in Afghanistan when an IED blew Andrew Smith’s legs off. In the five years that have followed Andrew, he has become the very face of the greatest nation of warriors to ever march.

As many know who love and support him, the spark-plug to Andrew overcoming tragedy has been his glorious family and his stunning wife, Tori, who abandoned hopes to become a lawyer and spent over a year at his bedside at Walter Reed.

With the courage of a gladiator and the heart of God’s servant, Andrew has blossomed into one of Chattanooga’s Favorite Sons but Tori is a most vibrate flow. Oh, is she ever! On Monday, at the public defender’s office where she is now an intern, Tori shared she has only two classes left in law school and hopes to take the bar exam sometime after she graduates in December.

Steve Smith summed it up perfectly after I got my usual hug and she left the room. “What a winner, I really want to hire her someday.”

And his Mental Health Court? Always remember … Steve Smith, our public defender, didn’t have to. But he did.

royexum@aol.com

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