"Judge to establish docket for mentally ill"

• By Rena A. Koontz, Plain Dealer Reporter

MEDINA - Mentally ill criminals could avoid jail under a system starting next year in Medina County Common Pleas Court.

Judge James L. Kimbler will begin a mental health docket designed to attend to a defendant's mental health needs with his punishment.  

Across the state, 17 counties offer mental health courts, including two in Summit County, one in Lake, and seven in Cuyahoga.  Kimbler's would be Medina County's first.

The participants will be mentally ill people accused of petty crimes like trespassing, theft or receiving stolen property.

An example would be a person charged with trespassing who broke into a building to seek shelter from the cold.

"Locking them up would punish them, but it would not help them," Kimbler said.  "These will be instances where their illness caused them to commit the crime."

Participants will agree to an intensive probation period that will include weekly face-to-face meetings with Kimbler, similar to the drug court started this year by his counterpart, Judge Christopher Collier.

Veronica Perry, chief probation officer, is excited about the opportunity the mental health docket provides for her office.  She said two probation officers are assigned to supervise mentally ill defendants, but they have no authority to hold defendants accountable for taking their medication or getting other treatment.  If the court orders it, the probation department can hold the defendants accountable. 

Perry, Kimbler and his staff visited Akron Municipal Court, where a mental health docket has been in place since 2001.

Chief Probation Officer Tony Ingram said about 300 people have been through the program since its inception.  He estimated that four people are diverted into the mental health court each month.

Kimbler said the program will be a good option.

"I put people in jail to punish them for past behavior, not to deter them from future behavior.  If they need treatment for that, then jail is not the answer."

"Court focuses on mentally ill"

Specialized docket in Medina may improve defendants' chance of success by providing treatment nearby

Thursday, October 13, 2005

• By Julie Wallace, Akron Beacon Journal writer

MEDINA - A new program will focus on treating the mentally ill who come before the Medina County court in January.  

That's when Common Pleas Judge James Kimbler will introduce the court's latest addition -- a mental health docket -- to ensure the mentally ill who are charged with low-level, nonviolent felonies receive treatment.

Court officials don't anticipate an overwhelming docket, saying it probably will involve no more than two dozen defendants a year.

But according to Kimbler, the goal is to stabilize them and keep them under supervision long enough to ensure some level of success -- since the crimes they are accused of occur most often when they stop taking their medication. 

"If we can get the offender to buy into the concept that they have to continue to medicate, then their chance of recidivism goes down substantially," Kimbler said.

The plan for a mental health docket came about at the urging of Veronica Perry, the court's chief probation officer, and it has been talked about for nearly a year.  A group was formed to study the concept and it even took a road trip this year to Akron Municipal Court, to watch its mental health court at work.

Perry said having the docket will give defendants a way to receive more personal attention -- that invariably improves their chances of success.  Specialized dockets are the way of the future for courts, she said.

Already, Medina County has a drug court that has proven to be successful.  It was created by Kimbler's counterpart on the bench, Judge Christopher Collier.  Collier applauded Kimbler's initiative and said he'll be on the lookout for defendants who might benefit from such services.

"What Judge Kimbler has done is an important an innovative way to handle the difficult cases that come before the court," Collier said.

Perry said her push for such a docket came about because defendants suffering from mental illness might not receive the treatment they need.  Under the new plan, Alternative Paths (a treatment facility in Medina) will be contracted to provide services.  The cost is expected to be $12,000 to $20,000 a year.

"We make sure the defendant is a law-abiding citizen, be we don't do clinical work, so that's where we'll be bridging the gap with a counselor, who will be making sure they are taking the right medication, helping them with housing applications and Social Security paperwork," Perry said.

Kimbler said he thinks the treatment can be handled without seeking more money from the county commissioners.  Rather, he's looking at some type of increase in court costs -- either on his docket alone or on all the cases handled by him and Collier -- to cover the expense.

Kimbler said he also plans to schedule time to meet regularly -- either weekly or biweekly -- with each of the defendants on the docket.  That type of one-on-one interaction has increased success rates elsewhere.  

Kimbler said defendants who end up on the docket probably will stay there for 18 months to three years.  They'll end up with a conviction -- unlike a traditional treatment-in-lieu-of-conviction program -- but he figures it's a cleaner way to deal with them.

"It's easier when you can say, 'You've been found guilty, now you have to deal with the consequences,'" Kimbler said.