Former officer’s courtroom program assists troubled veterans
State District Judge Marc Carter remembers sizing up the man before him in late 2009: a grim-faced, middle-aged guy with a U.S. Marine’s bearing and politeness, but with eyes closed off to the world, skeptical of everyone and everything.
Carter, a retired Army captain, would explain to retired 1st Sgt. Arthur Davis that his court was different, that veterans got a fair shake here. That everything he might need — drug treatment, psychological therapy, housing assistance, employment assistance, a second chance — was available. He just had to want them.
Davis wasn’t sold. He was new to the criminal justice system, and the only good thing he’d seen was another judge step down and thank him for his service — right after sentencing him to probation for an aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
Carter knew Davis needed more than a handshake. He needed the program that the Republican judge had pioneered in Harris County for veterans facing criminal charges.
The program itself had been a challenge politically to sell to the Legislature, even with the help of longtime state Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston. Some dismissed it as a boutique court. Carter argued that it wasn’t special treatment, it was earned, and appropriate, actually saving the county money by marshaling federal resources at the VA hospital and reducing recidivism. Carter’s insistence to include felony assault cases made the proposal even more controversial. Interestingly, though, veterans charged with assault turned out to be among the most successful in the program, Carter said, because what happened is often an isolated incident and not learned behavior or a chronic problem.
Carter knew that to serve veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder, he’d have to focus on common symptoms: aggression and violence. The effects are often magnified in the civilian world, where veterans still grieving the loss of their military
brotherhood often feel misunderstood, underappreciated and alone.
Davis, who struggled to cope back home in Houston after 22 years in the military, was the poster child for Carter’s cause.
“That sense of loss was devastating for him,” Carter told me in an interview in September. “For a time, he lived as an angry, miserable son of a bitch. But now, he is one of the most beautiful, inspiring individuals you’ll ever meet.”
Carter’s program has garnered the judge half a dozen awards over the years. The latest honor, a couple of weeks ago, was among the most prestigious — the William Rehnquist Award for Judicial Excellence, presented by U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts in Washington D.C.
Nathan Hecht, chief justice of Texas’ highest civil court, nominated Carter: “It was his wholeheartedness in making sure it worked that was really extraordinary,” he said.
High success rate
The pages of this newspaper are often filled with the tragic failures of our criminal justice system. Carter’s court is an example of a bold reform, and it’s worthy of recognition.
The court serves only a fraction of the hundreds of veterans booked into the Harris County Jail each month: about 45 participants per year and 198 since 2009, most charged with crimes such as felony drug offenses, aggravated assaults and drunken driving, according to Carter’s staff. They tout a 90 percent success rate, meaning few have been arrested on new offenses.
Patrick McCann, a retired Navy commander and criminal defense attorney who helped establish Carter’s program and subsequent ones in other jurisdictions, said the pioneering Harris County court has inspired more than two dozen in Texas.
“Everything the military teaches one to do to keep your fellow soldiers and Marines safe is a felony in the civilian world,” McCann said. “That was the genius of Marc’s approach — he was the only one with the guts and the sense to realize that the skills the service teaches you are the exact reason vets get into trouble outside, when they are combined with traumatic brain injury, PTSD, depression or selfmedicating.”
It worked for Davis, but not right away.
“I had to put my faith in the program, and I didn’t want to,” Davis, now 49, said. “The judge, I’ll be honest with you, saved my life.”
Paralyzed by paranoia
Davis, a veteran of Desert Storm and the post-Sept. 11 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, followed a familiar path toward destruction. While leading 200 men in Iraq, his convoy was bombed one day near Fallujah, killing two of his Marines. Their dog tags still hang from his rearview mirror. They were young, and he had promised their families he’d get them home alive.
He began to drink, among the first manifestations of PTSD.
After retiring in 2008, there was no ticker-tape parade, no stream of visit- ing family and well-wishers. He was paralyzed by paranoia, anger and nightmares. Soon, he became an alcoholic, a cocaine addict, and a criminal after he threatened a neighbor during an altercation.
“I guarded the president and now I’m in the county jail,” he remembers thinking. “It was the most horrific experience of my life, and you’re talking to someone who’s been in combat four times.”
He felt trapped and humiliated, even on probation, where he had to give urine samples regularly and ask permission to travel to Dallas to visit his son. Even after a probation officer recommended Carter’s court, his troubles didn’t stop immediately.
One weekend, he spiraled out of control and couldn’t reach anyone at the court because it was Mother’s Day. Davis said he ended up in a police car four times. When he reported back to Carter, the judge told him he was a leader but was failing to act like one.
“It was enough to embarrass me,” Davis recalled. “He gave me what I needed that day.”
Not all happy endings
Gradually, Davis got sober. He made the support groups and therapy sessions. He exercised. And he began to lead, establishing a mentor program that continues today in partnership with Mental Health America. After graduation, Davis began volunteering with other veteran’s groups, speaking across the nation. Even now that he’s dialed back to focus on his own family, including a 17-yearold daughter and 27-year- old son, he still fields calls daily from veterans who need help. And he’s in the process of getting his record expunged with the pro bono legal assistance from Vinson & Elkins.
Davis said the reason the court works is simple: the judge and the staff care. They see the veterans as people, and they talk to them as veterans, not criminals.
Carter, now 57, acknowledges that they aren’t all happy endings. He’s had veterans lie to his face. He’s had soldiers reoffend.
“I’m patient as hell,” he said. “But sometimes they give up on me.”
The common denominator of the veterans in his court is “very low sense of self-esteem and self-purpose,” along with self-hate. Part of Carter’s program tackles these issues by encouraging the veterans to lean on each other for support. That tight-knit feel presents an unexpected problem: “How do we keep them connected when they don’t have to be here anymore?” Carter said. “That’s really our current struggle.”
Carter appreciates the accolades, but his true reward are the veterans like Arthur Davis, many of whom still come visit, just to give him a hug.
“The guys always tell me ‘thanks, judge. You’ve done so much for me.’ And I’m thinking if you only knew how much personal satisfaction and how much my life was better because of your improvement and what’s happening here, you wouldn’t be thanking me.
“I’m getting just as much out of it as you are.”