Mental health court had praised accused shooter
In an April 5, 2022, letter recommending him for housing, a trauma clinician and a case manager with the Hamilton County Mental Health Court called Darryl Roberts, 57, a truly respectful and responsible man. He would be an excellent tenant, they said.
“He has been compliant and quite successful in the past year,” the letter states. “He maintains his mental health stability well, works consistently and follows through with all expectations of the court.”
A year and a half later, on the night of Sept. 28, Roberts allegedly killed Chris Wright, 38, outside Patten Towers, where Roberts had been staying since May. Wright was intoxicated at the time, according to an autopsy, and had a brief interaction with Roberts before Roberts allegedly stood up, pointed a gun at Wright and shot him in the head, according to a video played in court. Security footage of the encounter has no sound.
The letter sent to Patten Towers management said Roberts had been a participant in the county’s mental health court since 2017 and had been in the “trauma track” since January 2021. At the time he was in phase four of the program and set to graduate in summer 2022. He would continue to have the support of the trauma track indefinitely, the letter said, although funding for that program ultimately ended in June 2023, according to officials.
Rebekah Bohannon, the director of the Hamilton County Mental Health Court, said she can’t talk about the details of Roberts’ case because it would violate federal health privacy law. However, Bohannon could speak generally about mental health court, offering a glimpse into how patients typically navigate the program.
FUTURE BEHAVIOR
Bohannon said letters of support, like the one sent to Patten Towers, have not been standard for the program under her leadership. She started as director around January 2022.
“I’ve been a licensed clinician for many, many years,” Bohannon said in an interview. “I’ve been in the industry of addiction treatment, corrections, you name it. Unfortunately, we can’t predict future behavior. … I can’t think of a situation where I would write a letter. If I were to feel the need to write one, which would be case by case in a very unique situation, all we could speak to is what they’ve accomplished while in the court.”
Roberts had four charges included on the “mental health docket” in Hamilton County Criminal Court, according to records, stemming from offenses that occurred May 17, 2017. He pleaded guilty to theft of property, driving under the influence and violating the motor vehicle offender’s act, the last of which was dismissed, according to records. Another DUI charge was also dismissed.
Judgments entered in September 2017 indicate Roberts was ordered to pay $500 restitution, participate in DUI school and would lose his driver’s license for one year. He would also participate in mental health court, and orders filed in June 2022 state Roberts was in full compliance with the program.
In an email, Thomas Mulgrew, a spokesperson for Patten Towers, said recommendation letters are taken into account when considering new tenants. However, all residents must go through a screening process regulated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which is always the ultimate deciding factor.
MENTAL HEALTH COURT
Defendants apply to mental health court through their attorney, Bohannon said. The program conducts clinical assessments to determine whether the defendant qualifies. If applicants score as high risk and high need, they are eligible to participate. An assistant district attorney must approve their entry into the program.
There are typically around 25-30 people in mental health court, Bohannon said. State guidance suggests maintaining 25 people per case manager, and when the program is fully staffed, Bohannon wants to scale up to 50. There’s currently one case manager in Hamilton County Mental Health Court, she said.
Hamilton County Mental Health Court has five phases. In phase one, clients are in front of a judge every week, which increases to once every two weeks in phase two and so on. Participants must reach phase five before they can graduate. Roberts was in phase four in April and poised to graduate in the summer, according to the 2022 letter.
The way someone moves up the phases varies depending on their individual needs, Bohannon said. Someone with bipolar disorder, for example, may be able to hold a full-time job and have multiple degrees but simply need help managing medication. Such an individual’s goals and objectives will look vastly different from people with schizophrenia, who often struggle to maintain their daily hygiene, Bohannon said. The client must remain compliant with the expectations of the court to proceed to the next phase.
The most common diagnosis in Hamilton County Mental Health Court is schizophrenia, Bohannon said. The court also sees people with bipolar, schizoaffective and posttraumatic stress disorders.
Participants receive two case managers, one through the court who helps them navigate the program and another employed by a psychiatric provider who is more focused on ongoing treatment, she said. If the patient stays engaged in services, that second case manager will continue to work with the client after graduation from the program.
“We want to make sure that this client has every resource they need to be successful outside of the court, whatever that looks like, and it looks different for every person,” Bohannon said.
The court tries to prepare people for graduation by helping them understand their mental illness and providing them with access to resources, she said, including medication management, community case management, housing and job support.
“Once someone graduates, we hope that in the time they have been with us they have learned the value of the resources while in our program and will continue to use them once graduated,” Bohannon said in an email.
TRAUMA TRACK
The April 2022 letter also mentions Roberts was part of the court’s “trauma track,” which it said would continue to provide him with support indefinitely. When Bohannon started in 2022, the court had a grant that allowed it to provide trauma therapy. That ceased in June 2023, and any trauma related services supported by the grant ended at that time.
“This was something I kind of inherited, and it ended not long after I started,” Bohannon said. “I know there was some support for resources for clients. The trauma clinician could meet with them, but the specific nuances of that I don’t recall.”
The program was funded by a grant available through the Victims of Crime Act, a 1984 federal law. In a phone interview, Jennifer Brinkman, director of Tennessee’s Office of Criminal Justice Programs, said the Hamilton County Mental Health Court received $720,000 over an approximately five-year period through the program. The county also provided some matching funds.
For the fiscal year running July 1, 2022, to June 30, the grant funded a trauma clinician in Hamilton County Mental Health Court at $70,000, education at the correctional facility and subcontracts for outpatient therapy, counseling and group support, according to contracts with the state. It also funded transportation to appointments, support from a social work graduate student and hotel stays for people without safe housing options.
The state typically sees about $8 million to $9 million through the Victims of Crime Act, but between 2015 and 2022, there was a wave of new funding, rising one year to about $67 million, Brinkman said in a phone interview. That is now decreasing, although there are still nonprofits in Hamilton County receiving money, she said.
The county’s 2018 contract with the state said the purpose of the new trauma track is to serve people who have suffered from sexual trauma. That population, particularly women, had been historically underserved in Hamilton County, and the program would also provide added support for people who are part of the LGBTQ+ community.
The scope of the contract was amended in June 2021 to include other forms of trauma, specifically naming child abuse and sexual abuse, Lola Potter, spokesperson for the Tennessee Department of Finance and Administration, said in an email.
“(The Victims of Crime Act) allows for all types of victimization to be addressed, so treating other traumas would have been allowable,” Potter said.
Among other objectives, the program would aim to increase the availability of crisis counseling and therapy, reduce jail days for victims and minimize the revolving door of people going to prison, the contract said. The court would try to serve a minimum of 75 clients by year five of the program.
Rachel Westbrooks, who was one of two people who signed the letter to Patten Towers, used to be a clinician in the program’s trauma track but is now in private practice. Westbrooks said she hasn’t worked for Hamilton County Mental Health Court since June 30, which is in line with when funding for the program ended.
In a phone call, Westbrooks said she’s not allowed to talk about individuals’ treatments or people involved in the trauma track for privacy reasons.
“It was just a program designed specifically to assist people who had mental health diagnoses, were justice involved and had a history of trauma,” she said.
EVER EVOLVING
Asked if the county program has a way of measuring success using data, Mayor Weston Wamp’s spokesperson, Mary Francis Hoots, said the mental health court is “currently working on metric protocols.”
“They are looking into national evidenced-based methods to gather data and are also awaiting state direction on data gathering expectations,” she said in an email. “Their goal is to start detailed data gathering in 2024 in accordance with best practice standards.”
The Hamilton County Mental Health Court trains other judicial districts in Tennessee to start their own programs.
“That by no means says that we’re perfect and that we’ve got it down pat,” Bohannon said. “Mental illness is ever evolving, and the resources that someone needs is ever evolving. What we can do is really work alongside our partners in this fight across the state.”