Homeless Court Gives a Clean Slate and a Fresh Start

A year ago, 23-year-old Marshon Kincy’s life was far simpler. He was working for the Census Bureau and, along with his girlfriend, was raising their infant daughter, Malaysia.

After he spent five days in jail for an old ticket for riding the subway without paying, his girlfriend returned to Belize and things began falling apart. Kincy had depended in part on her income and, without it, the newly single parent and his daughter were left homeless.

“Me and my daughter would sleep in my car and go to friends’ houses,” Kincy said.

While he was without a roof, Kincy’s problems compounded. He said he lost his job and didn’t pay the fines that were a condition of his release from jail. So, two more warrants were issued for his arrest.

Kincy heard about Los Angeles County’s experimental Homeless Court program after he and his daughter were accepted into a Santa Monica transitional housing program in December. By participating in the court program, he said, he’s now on the road to repairing his life and moving forward.

Last month, Kincy was among 39 homeless defendants who had charges dismissed by Superior Court Judge Michael Tynan, who has presided over all five sessions of the court that began a year ago.

Tynan dismisses warrants for minor “quality of life” criminal offenses--sleeping in public, illegal use of a shopping cart, jaywalking--if offenders meet certain criteria.

Each must be continuously involved in a rehabilitative program for at least 90 days. Defendants also must have no criminal citations for six months. All offenses have to have occurred in Los Angeles County, and felonies and serious misdemeanors are exempt. No crimes involving a victim, a weapon, or drug possession or sales are allowed.

“We get the prosecutors to agree to dismiss [the warrants] since there’s no money here,” Tynan said. “We get about 20 or 30 [defendants] together. Then we have a ceremony at the shelters.”

Since the court’s inception, at least 100 people have gone before Tynan, said Lisa Jaskol, who assists in coordinating the court.

Because the program is in its infancy, all the kinks haven’t been worked out, added Jaskol, directing attorney at Public Counsel, a public-interest law firm.

For one thing, the court keeps no records that chart whether those whose cases have been dismissed have been able to stay out of further trouble.

Homeless Court is a volunteer program, explained Paul Freese, the court’s former directing attorney and Public Counsel’s head of litigation. With no funds available and the transient nature of the clients, tracking the results has been impossible, Freese said.

Los Angeles’ court was modeled after one that began in San Diego 12 years ago. There, an evaluation of the court showed an 18% recidivism rate among participants.

“We’ve been [holding court] since 1989 and we’ve always come back feeling this is working,” said Steve Binder, a San Diego deputy public defender and homeless court coordinator.

Los Angeles’ Homeless Court had its detractors after the first session last November. Among them was Alice Callaghan, who directs Las Familias del Pueblo, a nonprofit community center on skid row.

Callaghan said then that she thought the program would be abused by police who would use it “to force people into programs by giving them bogus tickets.”

She says she now believes in the merit of the court and had earlier confused it with another program that officials had been planning.

“They go in and they forgive everybody’s tickets and let them go on with their life,” Callaghan said. “There’s no downside to that.”

Improper treatment of the homeless in the first place is what creates the need to forgive the tickets, said Bob Erlenbusch, executive director of the Los Angeles Coalition to End Hunger and Homelessness.

“Law enforcement, particularly the LAPD, hands out more jaywalking tickets in skid row than almost anywhere in the country,” he said. “If society didn’t increasingly criminalize homeless people, then we wouldn’t need a parallel system.”

Kincy focuses on the advantages of the court.

Before being placed in transitional housing and eventually participating in Homeless Court, Kincy went through some tough times.

He scrounged for food to feed his daughter, eventually getting her to consume solid foods after she failed to eat regularly for nearly three weeks because she was used to breast milk. They showered in public at Santa Monica Beach, he said.

Family and friends tried to persuade him to give Malaysia up for adoption. But he refused and was finally able to find lodging.

Last month, Tynan dismissed the subway fare warrants at a court session at Covenant House on Western Avenue in Hollywood. With a clean record, Kincy said, he now stands a better shot at finding work.

Moreover, he was recently approved for his own two-bedroom home in Compton with help from Upward Bound House, the Santa Monica-based transitional housing facility for homeless families that he moved into in December.

After months of struggling, Kincy is on the road to independence, program director Tracy Woodburry said. Kincy is now waiting for final inspections of his new house so he and his daughter, now 22 months, can move in.

“The system made me fail,” Kincy said. “With Homeless Court, [it] paid me back.”