JEFF PORTER ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE The threat came in a letter.
Someone was going to bash in Margaret Reger's head.
The man accused of writing the letter in 1992 was
charged with felony terroristic threatening, but he was acquitted because
of mental illness. Last month, a judge ordered more evaluation and treatment
at the Arkansas State Hospital.
Reger, a lawyer at Ozark Legal Services in Harrison,
would like to know when he'll be released from the State Hospital. But
there's no guarantee that she will.
Several states, including Colorado, Alaska and Oregon,
require such notice. But when someone is acquitted of a crime because of
mental illness in Arkansas, the law does not require notification of victims.
Arkansas officials are considering a victim notification
system, though.
Caran Curry, the state's prosecutor coordinator,
met recently with a representative of a Kentucky company called VINE, which
offers an automated victim notification service. The computer-based system
could telephone victims who have asked for notice of a release hearing,
Curry said. Its main use would be for parole hearing notification, but
it could handle psychiatric hearing notification as well.
"It's certainly something that, if the victim wants,
the state should offer," Curry said.
Reger, who was never actually attacked, said she
understands why victims would want to know about an impending release.
Larry Jegley, chief deputy prosecuting attorney
for Pulaski County, was more direct.
"Damn right, the victim should be notified!" he
said.
The notification system probably would not require
new legislation, Curry said. The main obstacle is the funding. The automated
system would cost about $5,000 a year, she said.
In Arkansas, most people acquitted by reason of
insanity go to the State Hospital for evaluation. Then, they have a probate
court hearing before Judge Mary McGowan to determine whether they should
be released. If they remain hospitalized, State Hospital officials can
later recommend, or the person can seek, an order for release. Typically,
the court sets conditions for the release, such as continued treatment
and drug screenings.
States such as Colorado, Alaska and Oregon allow
the victims to take part in the release hearings.
But that idea troubles some Arkansas officials.
Tucker Steinmetz, chief executive officer of Birch
Tree Communities, a Benton-based nonprofit mental health organization,
said he'd be careful about allowing victim notification.
"I don't know if I'd have any problem," he said,
"just as long as you don't turn these meetings into a circus." Steinmetz
said victims frequently already know about the pending release because
they are often relatives or friends of the patients.
State Sen. Wayne Dowd, D-Texarkana, in 1995 sponsored
legislation that changed the post-release process for those acquitted because
of their mental illness. He questioned the value of victim notice if it
would give the victims the right to be heard.
"It would completely emotionalize these hearings,"
he said.
The issue is the person's competency, not punishment,
Dowd said. If the idea is simply to make the victims aware of an impending
release, notice might be justified, he said.
John Selig, director of the Department of Human
Services Mental Health Division, said he's not necessarily against victim
notification but worries that it would amount to community notice. If the
victim were notified, he said, the release could wind up being publicized
in the news media.
"I wouldn't object" to victim notice, said Dennis
Wells, director of the nonprofit Greater Assistance to Individuals in Need,
a mental health organization. He said his agency spends a lot of time talking
to clients about accountability and the consequences of what they did.
"We use it as an education kind of process."
Rich Farlow, the president of Personal Empowerment
for the Psychiatrically Labeled, said a notice system should be fair. The
treatment of cases involving mental illness should be the same as those
that don't, he said.
"I'm all for victim rights... I see that as a fair
thing to do," he said. Farlow's organization is an advocate for the users
of the mental health system.
He also said members of his group are interested
in programs that reduce the danger from the small percentage of mental
patients who could become violent. Mental health consumers want to be protected
as well, he said. A program that helps prevent violence by mentally ill
people might also help counteract the stigma that mentally ill people face.
McGowan noted that prosecutors are always notified
of release hearings, and she assumes that the prosecutor is acting on behalf
of the community and the victim. Notifying the victim directly is "probably
a good idea," she said.
Prosecuting Attorney Louis Loyd of Benton said the
justice system often overlooks victims.
"I see a great value in notification," he said.
"Victims... want to be notified."
The victims should also be allowed to take part
in release hearings, he said.
"I think they should be able to have input. ...
I think it's right."
Reger, the Harrison lawyer threatened in the letter,
said simple notification of a pending release would be enough for her.
"I wouldn't want the power to veto that," she said.
"I wouldn't want to participate in the hearing. But I would definitely
want to be notified."
She also understands the abstract argument that
notification might violate the rights of someone who is legally innocent
of a crime. But she sees the threat to bash in her head as far from abstract.
"When it actually happens to you," she said, "you
get a different feeling about it."
Pulaski County becomes 'home' to released mentally ill patients
JEFF PORTER ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE One man killed in St. Francis County in east Arkansas.
Another in Marion County and still another in Pope County, both in the
northern part of the state. A woman killed in Garland County, toward the
southwest. Another woman killed in Crittenden County, which borders the
Mississippi River in east Arkansas.
All of the accused were acquitted of criminal charges
because of mental illness. And when they eventually were released them
from the Arkansas State Hospital, none went back to their communities.
Instead, they stayed in Central Arkansas, most in Pulaski County.
The State Hospital can release, under court-ordered
supervision, people acquitted because of their mental illness under Arkansas'
911 Program, named after Act 911 of 1989.
In August, a computer database of program participants
indicated 122 were in Pulaski County. That includes 56 still in the State
Hospital and 15 in a privately run substance abuse program that operates
in leased space in the State Hospital. That leaves 51 living in the community,
either in residential care facilities or in private housing.
Saline County was next with 13, followed by Lonoke
County with 11.
A Little Rock mental health official finds the trend
troubling.
Because the 911 Program is centered in Little Rock,
its clients tend to relocate in the area, said Tom Grunden, director of
the Little Rock Community Mental Health Center.
The movement of the criminally mentally ill toward
the Little Rock area tends to tax resources in Central Arkansas, Grunden
said.
Central Arkansas is where those resources are located,
though. Two agencies -- 'Greater Assistance for Individuals in Need'
and the 'Little Rock Center' -- treat relatively large numbers of 911 participants.
Each of those agencies has about 30 such clients.
Another mental health organization, Birch Tree Communities,
has facilities in Saline and Lonoke counties and cares for two dozen or
more 911 clients.
The community mental health centers are responsible
for the treatment of 911 Program participants. State monitors are assigned
to meet weekly with the participants to keep up with their treatment.
Another reason for the concentration in Central
Arkansas, Grunden said, is that sometimes the criminally mentally ill are
not wanted in their home communities, where they are considered nuisances.
The attitude is, "We're going to send him up to the State Hospital and
get rid of him," Grunden said.
The Central Arkansas facilities are also known for
accepting some of the most difficult cases.
Greater Assistance for Individuals in Need, the
Little Rock center and Professional Counseling Associates of North Little
Rock treat four of the five people acquitted of murder then released from
the State Hospital under the 911 Program. Three live in Pulaski County.
The other, an elderly man, is in a nursing home in another Central Arkansas
county.
Greater Assistance Director Dennis Wells, Grunden
and Tucker Steinmetz, the chief executive officer of Birch Tree Communities,
all said they try to educate 911 Program clients about their legal status.
Most other mentally ill people are not under such strict requirements --no
court-ordered treatment, less possibility of a sudden return to the State
Hospital, no drug screenings.
Otherwise, the centers try to treat the 911 Program
participants pretty much like their other clients.
"What we try to do is tailor services to the needs
of the individual," Steinmetz said.
A bill passed in 1995 took a step toward decentralizing
the process, but the change has caused some criticism.
Program participants who remain in Pulaski County
are under the jurisdiction of Circuit-Chancery Judge Mary McGowan, who
handles mental health-related cases in a courtroom on the State Hospital
grounds. McGowan used to keep jurisdiction over all 911 Program participants,
no matter where they moved.
But the Legislature last year changed the law so
that participants who move out of Pulaski County come under jurisdiction
of the probate court in their new county of residence.
The sponsor of that legislation, state Sen. Wayne
Dowd, D-Texarkana, said he sponsored it on behalf of the Southwest Arkansas
Counseling and Mental Health Center in Texarkana. He said psychologists
and other center employees spent a lot of time traveling to McGowan's court
in Little Rock.
Sometimes, though, authorities in that county are
unfamiliar with the case. A participant might be charged with a crime in
Mississippi County, be sent to the State Hospital in Pulaski County, be
discharged to the Wilbur D. Mills Center in White County for substance
abuse treatment, then move to another facility in Garland County. With
each move, the jurisdiction goes to a different court.
One problem, said McGowan, is that the law didn't
address how courts should handle the transfers. She has an agreement with
the probate court in White County that if the person is there less than
a year, she'll retain jurisdiction.
White County had seven program participants in August.
Both the probate court judge and the prosecuting attorney there say the
Pulaski County court ought to keep jurisdiction.
"That is the location where you can find people
who know what happened," said Chancellor Robert Edwards. The cases shouldn't
go to "some court that's just been hit with some papers" and doesn't have
any background on the case, he said.
Dowd, though, said if a 911 Program participant
runs into a problem in the community where he is living, it makes sense
to handle that problem locally instead of in Little Rock. He said he was
trying to save money for local mental health officials, as well as law
enforcement officers, who might be required to transport the 911 clients
to Little Rock for their hearings.
The idea, said McGowan, is for 911 participants
to return to their home communities and receive treatment at their local
mental health center. However, that often doesn't happen. The participant
might be endangered by a return to the community, the judge said, or just
be unwanted there.
These articles were published on Monday, October 21, 1996
