Thanks for sharing. Great Article.
Yes, I feel that mentally ill people are often confined in jail and prosecuted and if they do not have a rich family to care for them, they suffer a lot.
I am now facing an issue. My son committed a violation in Public in 2016 (naked in public) that he may end up required to register as Sex offender ( Not sure) and serve in prison for a week and do community service
a private lawyer quoted me $6000 to clear the offense and I am checking with another lawyer.
I cannot afford this kind of fee.
What about if he does it again ??
I am hoping the public defender is good and will be able to get him of it of the registering as Sex offender.
is anyone have experience with this kind of offense.
Would you pay $6000 for private lawyer or would you let the court deal with it
CAAR2016 - I will offer you my own personal experience of using attorney versus public defender. I hired a highly recommended attorney to handle a case for my son, a juvenile, at the time. I found this particular attorney to be arrogant, didn’t keep me informed, didn’t even tell me the correct courthouse for one court appearance. He showed up late for each court appearance (sometimes as late as almost 2 hours!), with no apology when he did arrive. My son was sentenced to time in a juvenile facility anyhow, so in my opinion, the public defender could have done the same job. I spent about the amount you were quoted, plus money to the bail bondsman ($3300) and was talked down to by the attorney the entire time. It was not a pleasant experience. If he was listed on any of the sites where you can review attorneys, I would give him a scathing review. Of course, he’s not. One of the friends my son made in the juvenile facility had a public defender and received the same sentence as my son for almost an identical crime. So I think I blew almost $10K for nothing. My humble opinion.
Why is it that so many people get the urge to take off their clothes while they’re psychotic?
I think it depends on what he did while he was naked as far as the sex offender registry goes - usually, they tell you the worst case scenario.
If he was doing something lewd or if he seemed to do it purposely so that children would see him, then maybe.
Hopefully, they will use this to force some kind of court-ordered treatment.
I think you’d be fine with a court-ordered attorney in this case, but I would also speak to the district attorney about his mental illness and see what they recommend - and ask them for the court ordered treatment.
In most cases, the judge will listen to and follow the district attorney’s recommendations.
yes, this is what I am hoping to get from this: Court-ordered treatment.
I spoke to another public defender who represented him last year in the mental illness /conservator case and she said to contact his prior conservator in California. but the case with his 2016 conservator was closed last August 2016 after he returned home.
I am wondering if there is any benefit for me to be there at the California Court August 17 since I was granted the Guardianship in my state.
I will have to take off work and spend $ on flight, rental car and hotel, etc…
I will be talking to another private attorney tomorrow and have one hour of free consultation and see what he recommends in terms of assigning him a Conservator in California or if I need to be there…
I know. I think I would rather keep the $ to feed him and help him with treatment…
I’d rather go to something like this…
"Soteria is a community service that provides a space for people experiencing mental distress or crisis. Based on a recovery model, common elements of the Soteria approach include primarily non-medical staffing; preserving resident’s personal power, social networks, and communal responsibilities; finding meaning in the subjective experience of psychosis by “being with” clients; and no or minimal use of antipsychotic medication (with any medication taken from a position of choice and without coercion).[1]
Soterias were open—they had no restraint facilities for young psychotic patients, mostly at their onset. Loren Mosher, who founded the Soteria experience, showed that treating psychosis also in the acute phase is possible without using restraint methods.[2]
Soteria houses are often seen as gentler alternatives to a psychiatric hospital system perceived as authoritarian, hostile or violent and based on routine use of psychiatric (particularly antipsychotic) drugs. Soteria houses are sometimes used as “early intervention” or “crisis resolution” services."