Galveston County establishes mental health court
GALVESTON — Galveston County commissioners on Monday approved a resolution establishing a specialty court to process mentally ill defendants, part of an ongoing effort to reshape the county’s criminal justice system.
The mental health court, which is tentatively set to begin processing defendants in February, will initially have seven staff members working with a maximum of 30 felony defendants. The cost to the county will be roughly $571,000 for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1. Funding will come from county reserve funds, and the court will have to be renewed every year.
Judge Wayne Mallia, who will oversee the court, said that if the court is running smoothly, he will seek to expand the capacity to include misdemeanor defendants.
“Once we get to that point, and we’re clicking along on all cylinders, then we’ll start looking at misdemeanors,” Mallia said.
The court will be voluntary, with felony defendants needing a referral from their defense attorney to be admitted. Once referred, participants will be screened by an assistant district attorney for exclusionary criteria — such as being on parole currently or having a record of past violent offenses.
If the defendant is cleared, a clinician will evaluate the defendant for “inclusion criteria” — a major mental illness such as bipolar or a major depressive disorder, schizophrenia or schizo-effective disorder. Defendants can be admitted with secondary diagnoses such as post-traumatic stress disorder or substance abuse issues, as long as they also have a major mental illness.
The county’s handling of mentally ill criminal suspects and defendants came under increased scrutiny after a photograph surfaced in August of two mounted Galveston city police officers using a rope line to march a handcuffed Donald Neely — who was diagnosed bipolar and, at the time, homeless — down several blocks in public view, evoking comparisons to the slavery era and drawing national outrage. Neely is black, the officers are white.
Mental health advocates say law-enforcement officers must have the proper training and protocols in place to deal with mentally ill suspects.
The Galveston County Sheriff’s Office has a renowned mental health division, the first of its kind in the country, on call 24/7 with five full-time officers. But it remains to be seen whether the county’s mental health court will influ
ence how local law-enforcement agencies such as the Galveston Police Department handle mentally ill suspects like Neely.
“We don’t want to put a police officer on the street in the business of trying to make determinations on if someone’s a candidate for mental health court,” said County Judge Mark Henry. “I’m not so sure it trickles down to the police department level. Once they get to the county jail then we’ll certainly have our eyes on them.”
In Texas, 14 counties have some form of mental health court, including the four most populous: Harris, Dallas, Tarrant (Fort Worth) and Bexar (San Antonio). Harris County, which recently expanded its mental health diversion program to include lowlevel offenders, expects to save an estimated $18 million per year by keeping felony and misdemeanor defendants with mental illness out of jail.
Galveston County commissioners authorized Mallia in June to begin a fact-finding mission on what it would take to establish such a court.
Data is scant on just how widespread mental illness is in Galveston County, which has about 335,000 residents. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development requires a count of sheltered homeless persons and those without shelter on a single night each January, with the most recent survey showing 190 throughout the county, 11 of whom were classified as suffering from “serious mental illness,” though many believe the actual number to be quite higher.
Henry, who leads the county government, has long pushed for a mental health court, which he says will not only save money by not incarcerating mentally ill defendants but also could improve their lives by establishing a support system they might not otherwise have.
“We certainly want to be conscientious about every dollar we spend, but this is one of those times where I don’t expect a dollar return for every dollar we spend,” Henry said. “I don’t think we’re going to get that, I think it’s unrealistic to expect that. I think the improvement in people’s lives is worth more than a dollar-for-dollar return.”
Mallia visited mental health courts in Harris, Montgomery and Fort Bend counties, and consulted with a judge who runs a mental health court docket in Miami, Fla., one of the most successful and well-funded programs in the country.
A former state district judge, Mallia established the first specialty court in Galveston designed to help defendants successfully complete their probation. He said he is “honored” Henry tasked him with leading the mental health court.
“I always had an interest in specialty courts,” Mallia said. “This is a natural progression for me.”