Camarillo Psychiatric Court Offers Safety Valve

A middle-aged man in a fuchsia shirt and clashing red pajama bottoms shrugged his shoulders and stared into the distance when a judge asked why he had tried to commandeer a Wilshire Boulevard bus.

A woman whose face was smeared with lipstick and rouge muttered that “everyone’s in trouble with God.” A young man in a suit and sneakers refused to speak at all.

Typical Session

So it went at a typical session of Camarillo State Hospital’s psychiatric court.

Three times each week, one dozen to two dozen mental patients at the mammoth mental institution are brought before a Superior Court judge, who is empowered by state law to determine their immediate fate.

The sessions play a critical role in hospital life, serving as both an inlet and outlet valve for the institution. New patients are legally admitted through the court and veteran patients are either discharged or ordered held for more treatment.

Despite many of the patients’ strange dress and bizarre behavior, which sometimes includes shouting, crying and fantasy tales about living like millionaires or as rulers of distant lands, the court sessions are without gaiety or humor.

In fact, participants--patients, judge, psychiatrists, bailiffs and public defenders--seldom smile during these grim proceedings.

State law mandates a multilevel system for treating the mentally ill, with regional hospitals such as Camarillo designated for the sickest of the sick--”the toughest cases in the system,” said Jerry Scheurn, the hospital’s coordinator of volunteers.

In court, many of the new patients report hearing voices. Some are in terror from imaginary demons.

The reactions of most are slow, the result of the heavy tranquilizers routinely administered. Some appear oblivious to their surroundings.

Of the newly admitted patients, many raise no objection to continued confinement. But most patients are in court to ask the judge to release them, often promising that if freed they will faithfully take their medicine and avoid making a public disturbance or sleeping on sidewalks.

Many insist that a relative or friend is ready to take them in. But often a hospital staff member reports to the judge that a telephone call to the person named has indicated there is no such willingness.

‘Need a Little More Help’

To most of the 14 patients at a recent session, Judge Pro Tem William Dean Freeman concluded: “I think you need a little more help.”

“But when can I get out?” entreated a woman who had argued that her teen-age son needed her--although hospital personnel said her ex-husband has custody of the boy.

She received no reply, but the fact that the woman was alert enough to request a hearing suggests that she is almost certain to be released within a few days or a week, hospital officials said.