Personal Perspective : A Hollywood Judge Confronts the Gritty Reality of the Mentally Ill

The issue of mentally ill defendants in jail changed from an academic subject to a real-life problem for me this January when I was transferred to the Hollywood Municipal Court. I had been studying the problem for a State Bar Commission; suddenly, I was able to see firsthand the havoc the mentally ill are causing the criminal-justice system. Two or three such defendants would appear in my courtroom each week.

On occasion, my courtroom has become a mini-version of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” The experience woke me up to an impending disaster in our courts and correctional system of California. Reports indicate that nationally there are now more people with schizophrenia and manic-depressive psychosis in jails and prisons than there are in public mental hospitals, and, through experiences with defendants who have appeared before me, I have seen the sad results of that policy. Nobody, neither the people who are ill nor society, seems to benefit.

One of the first mentally ill defendants I was introduced to was Mr. H, who has appeared in my courtroom on three separate cases. (I’ll use initials or nicknames to protect identities.) Mr. H had called more than 100 times on the 911-emergency line to report that someone was trying to kill him or that he was suffering a heart attack. Neither of these explanations was true, and the repeated calls led to misdemeanor charges. Any doubts on my part as to Mr. H’s mental status were quickly dispelled when I was called to the lockup to witness his bizarre behavior: He was banging his head against the walls of his cell, while screaming that he was going to kill everybody.

Although Mr. H occasionally uttered a lucid thought, his screaming and foaming at the mouth convinced me to refer him for a psychiatric examination. About a week later, Mr. H returned to my courtroom. The doctors at the county jail had declined to find that Mr. H met the state’s criteria for involuntary hospitalization. Mr. H had been placed on psychotropic drugs while being evaluated and was now coherent, nonviolent and capable of understanding the proceedings against him. A plea bargain was struck, and Mr. H did some jail time, then was ordered to go the Hollywood Mental Health Clinic for treatment as a condition of probation.

Mr. H never went to the clinic. He did, however, make a second appearance in my courtroom. The police reported that some teen-agers hanging out on the streets of Hollywood had goaded Mr. H into pulling a buck knife and a struggle ensued over a radio. It was clear that Mr. H was delusional and had become a danger to himself and the young people. Again, Mr. H received jail time.

Not long ago, Mr. H was again on the court’s calendar, charged with trespassing at a convenience store. By this time, he had deteriorated to the point where he was raving and banging his head against the wall of his cell. Once again, he is receiving psychiatric evaluation to determine his ability to go to court.

The second case involves a 38-year-old woman, a shade under five feet, who had no prior criminal history and was charged with assault with a deadly weapon. I will never forget her vacant stare as she answered each question at her arraignment in flat tones of disinterest. She stood in front of me, accused of stabbing a pizza delivery man in the neck with a butter knife. This explosion of violence occurred when the man tried to take back the pizza ordered by the defendant because he was upset that she had cursed him.

When she finally pleaded guilty two months later, she was as docile as a lamb. Yet I knew the potential for another explosive rage was still present; as she herself explains, “I sometimes have blackouts when I forget to take my drugs.”

My third defendant I refer to as the “Galloping Gourmet.” He first appeared in my court for defrauding the L’Ermitage Restaurant by eating a $75 meal and not paying for it. Although there were some suggestions in the police report that the defendant had mental delusions, he coherently entered a plea to the charge and agreed to do community service and to pay restitution. He did not fulfill these judicial commands. Instead, he was again picked up for eating another three-course meal at La Maison restaurant.

Some of you might say that the Galloping Gourmet appears to be crazy like a fox. But this man is not your common “dine-and-dash” case. When the defendant appeared for the second time, his eyes were glazed, and I was unable to take a plea from him. Later, the Galloping Gourmet voluntarily admitted himself to the Metropolitan Hospital and is receiving treatment for his disorders.

Dozens of people appear every week in the Hollywood Courthouse suffering from the same or more severe maladies. For example, there was the dramatic entrance of one defendant who immediately spit out apple peels on the court clerk and the public defender. He then launched into a string of obscenities against the court, the United States and the planet.

Another defendant believes he is the husband-to-be of Madonna. He has been caught three times climbing the fence of Madonna’s property to consummate the marriage. And there is also the proper defendant who insists he went to Oxford, Yale, New York University and Harvard. He will tell me one moment that he has a Constitutional right to represent himself, and in the next he will scream in a high-pitched voice like a chicken being chased. His conduct usually involves unprovoked attacks on persons in the streets or at coffee shops.

From these examples, we can see that society is failing miserably to provide community programs for these mentally ill and homeless people. The jail system is not equipped to become the mental hospitals of the ‘90s. As judges, we will continue to struggle with these cases because there is little likelihood that they will go away. More important, these mentally ill defendants are arrested again and again, giving meaning to the term revolving-door justice.

We also must realize that it is impossible to predict which mentally unbalanced person standing before the court will eventually snap and go on a rampage, killing innocent people. Just recently, a woman took over an RTD bus in Beverly Hills and shot the passengers before being killed by a SWAT team.

The problems in the Hollywood Courthouse are just the tip of the iceberg. There are other more frightening instances of mentally ill persons committing dangerous felonies. The most important lesson I have learned from hearing these cases is that the judicial system of which I am part can’t solve this problem with criminal laws. Increasingly, however, that seems all that’s left for us to work with.