A Court of Refuge

by Ginger

  “Are you ready to dismiss the charge against Mrs. Tramm?” I asked the prosecutor.

  “Yes, Judge. I think the Tramm family has done a good job in helping prevent any further problems or arrests,” he said thoughtfully. “I will dismiss the charge.”

  It proved to be a bittersweet goodbye. Everyone in the mental health court enjoyed Mr. and Mrs. Tramm’s presence in the second row, listening and watching. We were uplifted by their devotion to each other and the quality of life that they were living in their golden years.

  “Please visit our restaurants. We would be happy to have you,” Mr. Tramm said.

  As they walked away from me toward the courtroom door, Mr. Tramm wrapped his arm around his wife. It was a gesture of grace and kindness acquired over a lifetime. Perhaps that is the true wisdom that comes with age and experience, and that is the wisdom that we, as a community, must learn to protect and honor.

  CHAPTER 12

  The Power of Human Connection

  In a court where the people who come before it are often living on the edge, our approach is to problem-solve one step at a time. After all, the last thing a healing court wants to do is add to the stress load of people who are already overwhelmed by life itself.

  Pam Hendricks, the behavioral health coordinator for Broward Health, referred Kenneth Marks to the Broward County Mental Health Court. A former baseball player in the major leagues, Ken, twenty-three, had been arrested for disorderly conduct and trespassing for allegedly failing to obey a police officer’s order to leave a nightclub a week before. He had subsequently been diagnosed with schizophrenia by a psychiatrist at Broward Health. He was scheduled to appear in court this morning, along with his parents. I had no idea what to expect.

  As I walked into the courtroom, I was relieved to learn that only a handful of cases were on the docket. I thought, the fewer people the better, since I did not want the courtroom to appear too intense or chaotic. I scanned the courtroom for Ken. He was not difficult to spot: young, athletic, and tanned from his hours of play and practice in the field, he sat alongside an older couple—his parents. Ms. Hendricks’s initial report indicated that the family was having a very difficult time handling the news of their son’s arrest and subsequent schizophrenia diagnosis. From the expressions on their faces to the way each seemed to cling tightly to the other, it was abundantly clear to me that the parents were in shock and in deep emotional pain.

  As I took the bench, I intentionally walked slowly and remained silent. The court staff followed my lead and waited for me to open the proceedings. I asked Janis to please introduce herself to the family and take the time necessary to explain the court process to Ken and his family and to let them know that their son had been referred to the court by the behavioral health staff at Broward Health.

  After his arrest, Ken had been able to call his parents from the jail, and they had paid the required bond for his release. From there, they had driven him directly to the emergency room at Broward Health for an evaluation. After a week of observation, Mrs. Marks told Janis, “The team physician informed us that Ken had not been himself.” The team sent Ken home and notified his parents that he had to be psychiatrically evaluated. His parents blamed themselves for his arrest because, as it turned out, they had already scheduled an appointment with the family doctor. Unfortunately, the arrest occurred before the appointment with the physician.

  They tortured themselves wondering whether the arrest could have been avoided if only they had scheduled an appointment earlier or had taken their son to an emergency room immediately upon his return home from training. Maybe the arrest would never have happened. They had so many questions: Why did this have to happen to their son? Would he ever be able to resume his baseball career? “He worked all of his life to get to play in the big leagues. It was his dream. And now it’s gone,” his father said in a broken voice.

  As Kenneth Marks approached the bench, I was surprised that he had achieved so much at such a young age. He appeared dazed, and I speculated that was most likely from the medication and all that he’d experienced over the past week.

  “Ken,” I said in a mild tone, “welcome. I understand that you have been through a great deal, and I am not going to prolong the hearing this morning.”

  “I am OK, Judge,” he said. “I am up to it.”

  We spoke about the court, and I listened to his parents explain that Ken had been recruited from college and had just signed with his team. Ken’s father gasped for breath as he noted that Ken had not been playing too long before his mental health began to deteriorate.

  We talked for a few more minutes about where Ken would receive care. His mother had contacted a private psychiatrist who had been recommended to the family. A follow-up appointment had already been scheduled by the case manager at Broward Health.

  “I think that is enough for today,” Janis said. “Let’s allow Ken to get some rest. He will come back next month, and we’ll evaluate his progress.”

  I thought that was a reasonable suggestion under the circumstances. As the deputy clerk prepared the court notice for the next hearing, Ken’s mother asked if she could speak to me for a moment. She stepped toward the front of the bench and said, “Judge, we are worried that now that Ken is away from his team, he will become more depressed and lonely.”

  I reassured her that Ken was going to recover and live a fully active and engaging life, but he needed a chance to get used to his treatment. I promised her that we were going connect him with additional services and peers so he would not feel alone, if he was interested. Granted, I wasn’t yet exactly sure what those supports would look like, but I bet that physical fitness, healthcare, and baseball were on the list.

  At the next scheduled hearing, once again Ken appeared in court with his parents. They indicated that things were going all right at home, but that it was “going to be a long road back to health.” I could tell the family was still in shock and were trying their best to be strong for each other.

  As the hearing continued, Ken said that he had played baseball in college in South Florida before he transferred to another university in Texas. He talked highly of the coaches who had mentored him and hoped to get back to the game that helped him to feel truly alive, he said. As he spoke, I reflected on the many mental health consumers I knew who had been diagnosed with a serious mental illness and gone on to reclaim their lives and accomplish tremendous goals.

  During the time that Kenneth Marks was a court participant, I was honored by an appointment by President George W. Bush to serve on the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health, established in 2002.1 The commission was a part of the president’s New Freedom Initiative, which was intended to advance the progress of the landmark legislation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, legislation that President George H. W. Bush had signed into law in 1990. The New Freedom Commission on Mental Health would convene every month to take testimony from the public and from experts and to engage in a comprehensive study and review to evaluate how best to improve mental health in America. The commission was charged with the responsibility of submitting both an interim and final report to the president.

  As I boarded the plane from Fort Lauderdale to Washington, DC, to attend one of the monthly meetings, I was seated next to a tall man. Eventually, we struck up a conversation. He shared with me that he was a college baseball coach. Ken’s last court hearing was on my mind, and my curiosity was piqued. The chance coincidence that I would find myself sitting next to a college baseball coach when Ken had just described his happiness at playing college ball—and the strong relationships he had formed with former coaches—stirred something in me. I decided to continue the conversation.

  Not wanting to ask him his name, I introduced myself. Then, he told me the name of the college where he coached, and I knew that this was no ordinary meeting. This might offer me a chance to get some help for Ken.

  We spoke for a while, and I told him what I did for a living and about the mental health court.
I wondered how I could ask for his assistance without revealing Ken’s identity. As the pilot announced that we had begun our descent for landing at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, I realized that this was not a coincidence, and I needed to say something before it was too late.

  “Sir,” I said, turning to the coach beside me, “I was wondering if perhaps you could assist me.”

  He nodded and said, “Sure.”

  “There is a wonderful young man in my court who played baseball in college. He is having some challenges, and I know that if he had the chance to speak to you . . . that perhaps you could offer some words of encouragement to him and, who knows, offer him some advice and guidance about how to hold on to his love of the game and remain engaged in baseball.”

  “I would be delighted,” the coach replied. “I once had a baseball coach who promised every player that, no matter what happened in life, he would always be there to support and encourage them. He inspired me to do the same.”

  I watched as the coach dug into his brown leather carry-on bag and handed me his business card. As I examined it, I thanked him. I could not believe my luck. Yes, it is him, Ken’s former coach! I did not say anything about this to the coach, though, due to confidentiality required by the court.

  After the weekend, I was eager to return to work and share the story of this chance meeting with the court staff. I did not know for certain whether Ken would feel comfortable reaching out to his former coach, but that would be his choice.

  Soon after I returned to Fort Lauderdale, I was advised that Ken had had a mild setback and had been readmitted to the hospital. I realized that my surprising news would have to wait. The court dockets seemed to be growing longer with each session. Perhaps it was because judges and lawyers were becoming more aware of people with mental health issues in their own court divisions and wanted to give their clients the opportunity to participate in my court.

  One day a special guest attended the court: Jamie Fellner, senior counsel for the United States Program of Human Rights Watch. She was visiting the court as part of a national survey and investigation into the criminalization of people with mental illness in the US. It was a great honor to have Human Rights Watch, one of the world’s most prestigious and effective global human rights and social justice organizations, in the Broward County Mental Health Court.2 The fact that Fellner was focusing on the criminalization of mental illness in the US certainly suggested that the organization had identified the criminalization trend in America as a human rights issue that was in dire need of attention and action.

  It was an intense and high-energy docket, as Fellner sat near me, in the witness box, to observe the court process. Since the court was a teaching model, I explained the principles of therapeutic jurisprudence as I went and emphasized the human rights elements that were embedded in the court process. This included the fact that the court was voluntary, highly individualized, and operated on a pretrial basis. The court did not require a plea of no contest in exchange for participation, which meant that the individuals retained their constitutional right to trial, should they choose to opt out of the court and return to the criminal division, to which they had originally been assigned.

  I emphasized to Fellner that I rarely applied sanctions in the court and only in those circumstances where noncompliance posed a public safety risk or if there was a re-offense that required remanding a participant to the jail. Typically, in the event of noncompliance, further action would be determined on a case-by-case basis. After a reasonable effort to promote engagement, an individual’s case would either be transferred back to the original court division for case administration or would be taken care of by a plea bargain in the mental health court. The importance of procedural justice and the minimization of the coercion was a hallmark of the mental health court. Early evaluations on the court were led by Dr. John Petrila of the University of South Florida and Louis de la Parte of the Florida Mental Health Institute, in partnership with the MacArthur Foundation, and yielded the outcomes that Howard Finkelstein and Broward County’s criminal justice and mental health partners had worked so hard for: “Researchers noted, ‘The Broward court was designed to be informal, often involving interaction and dialogue between the participant about problems and treatment options. . . . The patience and tolerance . . . create an impression that speedy disposition of a large number of cases is not a priority.’”3 In the early years of the court, Professor John Monahan, when he presented the findings of the preliminary observations of the court across the country, even went so far as to say that participation in the court was almost as pleasant as “going out for an ice cream sundae.”4 In other words, court participation was not only voluntary but also, and primarily, therapeutic.

  Within a matter of weeks, Ken returned for a status hearing in mental health court. Once again, he appeared with his parents. This time he shared the good news was that he was feeling better. His doctor had made an adjustment to his medication that significantly improved how he was feeling.

  Janis reviewed his progress and was pleased. As the hearing continued, I reached down into my purse and pulled out the business card that I had received from his college baseball coach. I thought about how I was going to explain this serendipitous experience. After considering several possibilities, I decided that the best way to raise it was simply to reveal the facts and circumstances as they occurred.

  I appreciated the change of roles: Now, I was the storyteller.

  I started off by explaining that the most amazing thing happened when I flew to a meeting in Washington, DC, about a month before. “I sat next to a very nice man who was tall and had a mustache and we engaged in conversation. As we shared our line of work, he told me that he was a college baseball coach.”

  I handed the business card to my deputy and asked him to give it to Ken.

  As Ken examined the card, his face registered surprise. “What is this?” He stared at the card in disbelief, blinking fast and hard. When he looked up, his eyes glistened under the courtroom lights. “Did you really meet my coach?”

  “I did,” I replied. “I want you to know that I never mentioned your name to him or revealed anything about the fact that you were a participant in the mental health court. What I did tell him was that there was a wonderful young man in my court who had played baseball in college, and he may appreciate getting a bit of encouragement and having someone to talk baseball with.”

  Ken was overwhelmed with joy. “You mean I could call him and just say hello and catch up?”

  “Absolutely,” I said. “He said that he would be delighted to speak to this young man. Think how surprised he will be when he finds out it’s you.”

  Ken’s mother and father were overwhelmed. I explained to them that I did nothing more than take my seat in the plane. It was really a matter of fate. As soon as I uttered those words, I thought about Aaron Wynn and how, at the court’s celebratory launch, Howard Finkelstein had referred to the creation of the court as a leap of faith.

  “You know,” I said, “I bet if you were interested, you could ask your coach about how to go about volunteering as a baseball coach at one of the colleges here in South Florida.” I watched Ken’s expression, which lingered on the edge of disbelief and overwhelming joy. “Only when you’re ready,” I added.

  In the months that Ken and his family came to mental health court for their hearings, I found myself thinking about baseball and how it so elegantly articulated the importance of human connection and support. Beyond the mundane details—a game played in nine innings with nine players on each team; beyond the sport’s alliance with American culture as a “perpetual drumbeat keeping time through American history”—something about the interaction of the players themselves underscored what I witnessed in the mental health court each day.5 Perhaps it was the centrality of home plate—an apt metaphor for the importance of home and family—and the way “success” is often reliant upon the people one is surrounded with, paired with stable and safe l
iving conditions. The hearth, the home fire, and family gatherings at holidays, happy memories of home, often form the inner layer of fortitude that mental health activists refer to as “resiliency.” Home: the place of origin and the place we perpetually return to, like the runners scattered across first, second, and third bases who all hope to cross home plate.

  But it wasn’t just the home-plate metaphor. Listening to professional games on the radio on my drives to and from the courthouse, I realized that baseball was a game that consists of a series of second and even third chances. It takes three strikes for a player to be called “out,” and there are three “safe” bases a player can take refuge on to avoid being “tagged out.” It takes three “outs” to turn a team from defense to offense. And in any professional game, there are at least nine innings. It is a choreography of opportunities regained.

  Baseball, in other words, isn’t a game that demands a single act of perfection. Instead, it is a game that acknowledges the human condition as one riddled with chance and failure.

  Ken’s face lit up as he read the name on the card again and again. Just like the game he loved, life had offered him up second and third chances.

  Violet Harrison had been arrested for disorderly intoxication at a popular bar on Fort Lauderdale Beach. At thirty-two, Violet didn’t quite look like the kind of person who would be arraigned for the reason she had been. She was diminutive—or, perhaps, diminished. Drawn into herself, her posture seemed to collapse as Allen, the court deputy, escorted her into the jury box.

  “Vi, we’re here for you! We love you!” Violet’s mother called from the first row of spectator seats where she and her other daughter sat. Allen made a beeline for Violet’s mother to admonish her to maintain decorum in the court.