Crusade for abused women in prison

California has a "unique law" intended to assist domestic violence victims in prison. Under the law, a woman who killed her abusive partner and who was convicted before 1992 is entitled to petition for a new trial if she did not have an expert witness on battering.

The law was enacted in 2002. The problem is, many women in prison did not hear about it. Then, a young lawyer named Olivia Wang began a crusade. Her Habeas Project has grown into a statewide coalition that is celebrating victory in the freeing of Joyce Walker, who spent 16 years in prison for killing her horrifically abusive husband.

The story is featured on page 1 of Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle.

The Habeas Project has helped win freedom for 19 domestic violence survivors serving life sentences in California.

Drug courts: Do they work?

Drug courts are expanding nationwide in the United States. But do they work? And do they save money?

A series of new reports suggest that the answers to these questions is "Yes."

Several new reports are now available online:

The Department of Health and Human Services’ Center for Substance Abuse Treatment has issued a 161-page outcome report about one type of drug court – the Family Treatment Drug Court. The report focuses on courts in California and New York.

A report on California’s drug courts is available at the web site of NPC research.

And, finally, the National Institute of Corrections has a full page of excellent reports and resources on drug courts.

Should special witnesses summarize expert testimony?

Can jurors really understand all of the data presented to them in complex legal cases? Or should a special witness be allowed to summarize the information for them?

That is the issue coming up before the U.S. Supreme Court in Harms v. United States (Docket number 06-990, 442 F.3d 367, 5th Cir.).

In that worker’s compensation case, the prosecution called a summary witness who presented a flow chart of the information that the jury had heard.

A Fifth District appellate court ruled that the case was complex enough to justify this special witness. The testimony was allowable because it was both impartial and accurate, the court ruled.

In this month’s “Judicial Notebook” of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, attorney/psychologist Jennifer Groscup writes that more psychological research on this topic would better inform the upcoming Supreme Court decision.

The limited empirical research suggests that summary information might help jurors understand information and make better decisions, Dr. Groscup writes. Such summaries might be especially useful to increase understanding of complex testimony by expert witnesses.

Dr. Groscup's article, co-authored by Jennifer Talon, is available online.

Attorneys in the testing room – Yes or No?

Hey, you forensic psychologists: When an attorney asks if she can sit in while you test her client, what do you tell her?

If you think there is one accepted answer, think again.

The National Academy of Neuropsychology and the American Academy of Clinical Neuropsychology say you should keep that attorney out. Her presence may violate test standardization, skewing the results.

But some forensic psychologists, such as Randy Otto, say banning third-party observers may be legally problematic. Some states allow defendants in court-ordered evaluations to bring in observers. And when a defendant speaks another language, we may need an interpreter in the room.

This issue is heating up, as the Committee on Psychological Tests and Assessment (CPTA) of the American Psychological Association’s Board of Scientific Affairs prepares to issue a policy statement on third-party observers.

You can watch the fireworks as proponents debate their positions at the American Psychological Association convention in San Francisco next month. The debate, “Third-Party Observers in Psychological and Neuropsychological Forensic Psychological Assessment,” will be Saturday, August 18, at noon.

Another source of information is the latest issue of the journal Ethics & Behavior. Robert Cramer and the eminent forensic psychologist Stanley Brodsky have co-authored an article, “Undue Influence or Ensuring Rights? Attorney Presence During Forensic Psychology Evaluations."

The article summarizes the neuropsychological literature on extraneous influences in testing and the limited literature on the effects of attorney presence in the testing room. It also discusses legal and ethical mandates pertaining to attorney presence and offers suggestions for forensic evaluators on how to answer the attorney who asks to sit in.

Requests for reprints of the article may be sent to crame001@bama.ua.edu.

“Romeo and Juliet defense” bucks sex offender trend

Back in the day, many 16-year-old girls dated 18- or 19-year-old guys. After all, the conventional wisdom went, girls are more emotionally and physically mature than guys their own age.

That was back before politicians discovered the quintessential vote-enhancing bogeyman, and began enacting an ever-widening array of sex offender laws.

Never mind the growing evidence that such laws may do more harm than good to victims of sex abuse and to society more broadly. Now, in many states, an 18-year-old man who has sex with his younger girlfriend can be required to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life. This limits opportunities for jobs, college, and even for student loans.

Take Indiana. When sex offender registration laws were first enacted there, they were reserved for the most serious of sex offenses, primarily rape. As time went on, more and more offenses were added, until some sexually active teenagers in dating relationships found themselves caught up in the political dragnet.

But now, Indiana legislators have created a loophole for teenagers in love.

Public Law 216, which went into effect this month, decriminalizes consensual sex among teenagers in a dating relationship if their age difference is within four years. The new law can protect a 19-year-old man from felony charges if he has sex with his 15-year-old girlfriend.

It will be up to the accused to prove all the elements of the new “Romeo and Juliet defense.” He must be younger than 21, he must be in a dating relationship with the girl, and she must be at least 14.

The state prosecutors' association, Indiana Prosecuting Attorneys Council, supported the legislation.

One thing about pendulums is that they always swing. If it’s swung to its most extreme side in Indiana, I suspect it may start swinging back toward moderation in other states as well.

Public Law 216, also called House Enrolled Act 1386, is available online. In the "Go to Bill" box, type 1386. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on "Enrolled Act." New portions of the statute are in bold type.

For an excellent opinion piece on the unintended consequences of sex offender laws, see Amanda Rogers’ blog. Also see my April 10 blog post, "Sex Offender Laws Gone Amok," for some extreme examples of sex offender laws in practice.

Mentally ill behind bars – a national crisis

Michael Moore’s new film Sicko documents the crisis for Americans who need medical care. But for those whose illnesses are mental, the situation is even more dire. With almost no treatment resources left in the community, if you are mentally ill and poor you are likely to end up one of the 7 million Americans – or 1 in 32 adults – behind bars. Indeed, the behemoth L.A. County Jail now houses the largest psychiatric population in the country (and perhaps in the world?).

A Washington Post opinion piece calls for immediate action to address this "national emergency." The editorial, "The Wrong Place to Treat Mental Illness," is by Marcia Kraft Goin, a past president of the American Psychiatric Association:

Last month the Supreme Court rightly blocked the execution of Scott Panetti, a Texas man who was convicted of a double murder and who suffers from delusional schizophrenia. The case drew public attention to the intersection between mental illnesses and executions.

There is a pervasive attitude in this country that such people are getting what they deserve: After all, like Panetti, they are in jail for something.

But did you know that the Los Angeles County Jail houses the largest psychiatric population in the country? That's not justice. That's emblematic of a national emergency.

Before the 1960s, people with mental illnesses were generally cared for in institutional settings, mostly state-run psychiatric facilities. Many advocates correctly saw this as "warehousing" people who could be cared for in less restrictive settings. Federal legislation and the courts powered a move toward deinstitutionalization, calling on states and counties to provide resources for social services, vocational rehabilitation and treatment services. The introduction of effective antipsychotic medications also drove the trend toward deinstitutionalization.

In the decades since, community-based services have helped many people. But the situation today constitutes a national failure.

What's gone wrong?

Most important, the necessary community resources didn't materialize in anywhere near the level that was needed. Also, antipsychotic medications, while powerful treatments, don't work in isolation. Patients need a relationship with a psychiatrist, clinic or other stabilizing force to ensure adherence to drug regimens and achieve the best possible recovery.

Deinstitutionalization has succeeded in decreasing the overall number of hospital beds, but an unforeseen consequence has been the proportional increase in the number of people with mental illnesses housed in the criminal justice system. Worse, once imprisoned, people with mental illness are shown to have much longer incarcerations than other inmates, primarily because a prison environment and lack of treatment aggravate the very illness that has led to their objectionable or antisocial behavior.

While no one would argue that Scott Panetti belongs on the streets, his case compels us to consider the justice system's role: Is it to mete out punishment that seeks retribution, or are there cases where real justice means effective treatment that seeks rehabilitation?

Consider again Los Angeles County: In 2002 there were 38,600 psychiatric evaluations at the inmate reception center of the Twin Towers jail. Of these, 23,190 people (60 percent) were found to be in need of mental health treatment. A reasonable person could not fail to see the correlation between decreased funding for mental health resources, the closure of hospital beds, homelessness and the criminalization of mental illnesses. Untreated and lacking access to long-term care, people with mental illnesses often end up with symptoms and behaviors that result in jail time.

Cuts in state Medicaid budgets promise to exacerbate these problems. Not only is this shift in funding a blight on our society, it also costs money -- a lot of money. Corrections officials, mental health workers, medication, amortization of buildings and time spent by police in court all cost more than treating patients appropriately in their community. This doesn't make financial sense, much less humanitarian sense.

When considering the direction of public policies that affect those with mental illnesses, politicians and other officials must be guided by the latest research.

Government-funded studies have shown in recent years that jail-diversion programs, which help people get the treatment they need, result in positive outcomes for individuals, communities and the criminal justice system. While jail diversion does generally result in lower criminal-justice costs and greater treatment costs, studies are underway to analyze the differential.

The question the court answered in the Panetti case was about one's fitness to be executed, but in many more cases, the question is about the appropriateness of incarceration at all.

Posted with written permission of the author, Marcia Kraft Goin.