Sebastian County officials plan mental health court

FORT SMITH — Sebastian County officials will seek federal grant money to establish a mental health court to give a second chance to offenders with mental illnesses.

The Quorum Court approved a resolution Tuesday night to apply for a Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program Grant through the U.S. Bureau of Justice Assistance.

If approved, the county, which is in the 12th Judicial Circuit, would receive $750,000 over three years. It would require a 20 percent match from the county, which County Judge David Hudson said would be provided inkind through the salaries of those involved in the program.

The grant will provide training for the court system and administration with support to assist implementation and reporting, Hudson said.

“We don’t know how to do this,” Prosecuting Attorney Daniel Shue said of the need for training. “It’s different from drug court and veterans treatment court. We’re doing everything in our power to get this set up and running.”

Sebastian County Circuit Court started the drug court in 2002 and the veterans treatment court in 2015. It’s expected the mental health court judge would be Circuit Judge Annie Powell Hendricks.

A requirement of the grant is that the county continue to run the court with its own money after the grant funds run out, Shue said. The deadline for submitting the grant application is May 29.

“It’s another specialty court we need as part of our tool kit here as options for people to deal with their issues rather than booking them into jail and having them sentenced to serve time there or in prison,” Hudson said.

The 16- bed Five West Crisis Stabilization Unit that opened Feb. 28 at the Western Arkansas Counseling and Guidance Center in Fort Smith was set up with the mental health court in mind, Shue said.

The unit was developed with state money in a $6.4 million pilot program to test the effectiveness of diverting people with mental illnesses for treatment of their illnesses rather than to jail when they have psychotic episodes that require police response.

Sebastian is one of four counties chosen to participate in the pilot program. The other three counties are Craighead, Pulaski and Washington.

Sebastian County would not be the first in the state to establish a mental health court. Craighead and Crittenden counties in the 2nd Judicial Circuit in east Arkansas began operating mental health courts in 2011.

Legislation was needed to enable establishment of a mental health court in Sebastian County. Shue worked on drafting the legislation during the last session with District 77 state Rep. Justin Boyd, R-Fort Smith, and District 9 state. Sen. Terry Rice, R-Waldron, who sponsored the bill.

Called the Mental Health Specialty Court Act of 2017, it sets the rules for who goes before the court and how they are treated.

Unlike criminal circuit court cases, the prosecutor and defense attorneys in mental health court are nonadversarial as they promote public safety while protecting the court participants’ rights to due process.

A person with a mental illness would be eligible to participate in mental health court if he committed a crime that did not involve violence or the requirement to register as a sex offender, according to the law.

Among other things, the goals of the court would be to quickly identify and place people eligible to participate in the program; they would have access to a continuum of treatment, rehabilitation and other program services; they would be tested periodically for drugs and alcohol; the officials in the court system — judge, prosecutors, defense attorneys, mental health providers — would devise strategies to help the participant maintain compliance with his treatment program; and court officers would partner with public agencies and community-based organizations to generate local support and enhance the court’s effectiveness.

On successful completion of the program by a participant, the judge may dismiss court case against the person and expunge the record, the act said.

Also, “he or she may petition the mental health specialty court for relief from disability to restore the mental health special court program participant’s right to purchase a firearm and to otherwise be removed from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Instant Crime Background Check System database,” the act said.

In addition to helping a person avoid punishment because of the effects of having a mental illness, the program would divert people from the jail and help reduce crowding that has plagued the county facility for years.

The county has adopted several ways to reduce crowding, such as signature bonds, electronic monitoring, drug and veterans courts, and transferring prison-bound inmates to other counties to await prison space.