I recently posted two blogs that raise troubling questions about what happens when people with mental disorders become entangled in our criminal justice system. Here are updates about Reginald Latson and Josh Francisco. 

IS RACE A FACTOR IN HOW VIRGINIA IS TREATING AUTISTIC BLACK MAN?

The Washington Post is continuing to publicize the troubling case of Reginald Latson, an African American young man with autism currently being held in solitary confinement in Stafford County, Virginia. One has to wonder if race had and is playing a role in this unfolding sad incident in light of recent national events that have shown a spotlight on how race can influence our system.

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The following editorial was first published on line Sunday morning by USA TODAY and appears in the newspaper’s print edition today, 12-2-2014.

DON’T EXECUTE THE PURPLE COWBOY

Texas Case Highlights The Perverse Legal Definition of ‘Mental  Competency.

By Pete Earley in USA TODAY

On Dec. 3, Texas plans to administer a lethal injection to Scott Panetti, a mentally ill inmate who attempted to call former president John F. Kennedy, the pope and Jesus Christ as witnesses while representing himself at his murder trial wearing a cowboy costume with a purple bandana.

Panetti’s 22-two year odyssey through our U.S. legal system for killing his in-laws should never have gotten this far and while his case is especially egregious, up to 10% of the 3,035 inmates currently awaiting execution are thought to have a diagnosable mental disorder, such a schizophrenia, and a June study found that of the last 100 people executed in the U.S., 54% had a mental illness.

The state had to hold two jury trials — not to prove him guilty — but to prove that he was sane enough to prosecute him. At his trial, Panetti announced God had cured him, fired his attorneys and called “Sarge” as a witness, questioning himself on the stand using different voices.

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11-28-14

          RITUALS      By Joanne Kelly

If you are an astute observer and you stand in the courtyard of my son’s apartment building, you might notice that everyone’s window blinds are white except Jay’s. The blinds in his windows are a golden brown, the outward manifestation of a two-packs-a-day smoking habit multiplied by four years of occupancy in this particular apartment. 

Today is pretty typical of my visits over the last few months. Jay hasn’t answered any of my phone calls this week. It is 4:00 in the afternoon on a sunny day in late November. I knock. I wait. I knock again. I wait some more. Finally I hear him unlock the deadbolt. He opens the door looking disheveled and groggy. Obviously, I have interrupted his sleep.

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11-24-14  On Friday, I posted a speech that D.J. Jaffe had given at the New York State National Alliance on Mental Illness convention that highlighted the difference that he sees between being a Mental Health Advocate and Mental Illness Advocate. Larry Drain, the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance’s legislative liaison for state affairs in Tennessee, responds in the blog below with a different point of view. Drain recently gained attention in the media after he and his wife of 33 years were forced to separate so they could keep her health insurance. Tennessee did not expand Medicaid and Drain has been protesting by writing a letter every day to that state’s governor. 

MENTAL HEALTH vs MENTAL ILLNESS: WHERE D.J. JAFFE GETS IT WRONG

BY LARRY DRAIN 

  If you have not read D.J. Jaffe’s speech, nothing I say will make much sense but I read it and here is my response. Jaffe’s basic argument is, as I understand it, really simple. We spend far too much money on people with less serious mental health issues and far too little on people with serious mental illness. That spending has been fueled by the people who have a vested interest in that kind of allocation of resources, and the result has been a tragedy of immense social and personal dimensions. Click to continue…

11-21-14  D. J. Jaffe is a mental health gadfly, defined as “one who provokes others into action by criticism” and much like his friend and mentor, Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, his views often inspire some and anger others.

Earlier this month in a speech at the New York State convention of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, Jaffe claimed there was a difference between being a mental health advocate and a mental illness advocate. Here is an edited version of his talk.

By D J Jaffe

Exec. Dir. Mental Illness Policy Org.

I want to make clear that like most of you, I am not a mental health advocate. I am a mental illness advocate.  I think we need less mental health spending and more mental illness spending.  It is the most seriously ill not the worried-well, who disproportionately become homeless, commit crime, become violent, get arrested incarcerated or hospitalized. 360,000 are behind bars and 200,000 homeless because we are now focused on improving mental health, rather than treating serious mental illness.

My number one message is that we have to stop ignoring the most seriously ill. Send them to the front of the line for services rather than jails shelters prisons and morgues.  I’ll talk (now) about how mental health advocates ignore the seriously ill.

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