The Boney Courthouse, foreground, and Nesbett Courthouse, photographed on Dec. 31, 2020 in downtown Anchorage.
Besides the several hundred people that attended, retired judge Stephanie Rhoades spoke as one of the founders of the Mental Health Court, along with Justice Jennifer Henderson of the Alaska Court System. Both of them spoke about the positive outcomes for participants. Twenty years ago, I went through the Mental Health Court Program. And I have since testified to the Alaska Legislature on the need for funding therapeutic courts.
In 2003, the police came to my apartment in Anchorage with a court order to take me to the Alaska Psychiatric Institute for a forced psychiatric evaluation. They placed me in handcuffs. I asked the police if they would get my jacket, shoes, keys and glasses. The police refused my request. I was hustled out the door in winter, barefoot and cold, without glasses, to be transported in a marked police car to API.
For me, the therapeutic Mental Health Court did what the state of Alaska’s mental health care system and laws refused to do: set up a program where I could get the help I needed.