and the person if we don’t just give them 10 days in jail and then put them right back out where they started,” said Nick Stewart-Oaten, appellate attorney with the L.A. County Public Defender’s office and the author of the state law that allows for the pretrial diversion. He started the diversion program in L.A. County.
Among the thousands of defendants passing through daily, many stand out to public defenders as offenders whose crimes clearly arose from untreated mental illness. A social worker and case navigator come downstairs and speak with the defendant. With access to the county’s mental health records system, they can piece together a clinical history and make a recommendation: diversion with outpatient treatment, diversion with residential treatment or no diversion.As she watched her son’s mental health deteriorate, Deborah Smith pleaded to petition for conservatorship so he could be placed under involuntary treatment. One hospital after another declined.
In particular, acute care beds in locked facilities are scarce. To keep its emphasis on rapid, the program focuses on defendants with mid-level mental illness. The graduation ceremony has become a valued element of the treatment, said Public Defender Caroline Goodson, countywide coordinator for the program who attends most graduations. The impersonal machinery of the court is suspended and the defendant’s narrative becomes the center of attention. Goodson starts each one with a tribute.