Symposium brings experts to discuss mental health courts

With mental health daily impacting the kinds and numbers of crimes occurring inTexas, a group of concerned judicial experts were brought to San Marcos to gain insight and knowledge about how best to address the growing problem.

The Hays County Specialty Court Symposium, a daylong event, was held Friday, April 28 in the Office of Emergency Services at 810 S. Stagecoach Trail.

The symposium was well attended with many judiciary figures present from numerous Central Texas counties. With the goal of bringing like minds together, the day offered seven main discussions related to something relatively new, the concept of specialty courts that are designed to increase efficiency in the legal system, as well as to fine-tune the types of programs and assistance that may prevent someone with mental health challenged from becoming a repeat offender in the system.

Leading off the day’s series of guest speakers were Hays County Mental Health Specialty Court Judge Elaine Brown and Hays County Court Administrator Kaimi Mattila.

Elected to serve as judge of County Court at Law No. 3 in November 2022, Brown was an attorney before becoming a licensed professional counselor. It was the particular intersection of the law and psychology that drew her to law, she told the audience.

“As many of you know, mental health is a crisis in this state as well as in our county. We have several individuals in jail right now that are sitting there because they have a mental health issue, not because they have committed any serious crimes at this time,” Brown said.

Mattila is a licensed clinical social worker with years of experience dealing with community health.

The Mental Health Specialty Court is relatively new in Hays County. This court is in place to decrease patterns of recidivism in the legal system by helping those with a mental health diagnosis and/or substance use disorder with a pending misdemeanor charge find mental health treatment rather than be immediately placed along the more traditional path of heading straight to jail or other incarceration.

Judicial Resource Liaison at Texas Center for the Judiciary Judge Laura Weiser founded what is now called “The DWI Court” when she served as judge of the County Court at Law No. 1 in Victoria County for 22 years. She retired from that post in 2013, and took on her new role as liaison which now allows her to assist in the development of curriculum and programs for the judiciary with specific attention to impaired driving, license suspension, alcohol monitoring technologies and other conditions linked to probation and sentencing protocols.

“We’ve talked about specialty courts, but probably the biggest difference between this docket and my regular docket is it's a collaborative team approach,” Weiser said. “The decision made by the judge is often made with very scant information about the offender and their background.” Weiser noted that is not the case in a specialty court.

“We are looking at the whole person,” she added.

Mattila said that one in every four people is directly or indirectly impacted by a mental illness — which is the primary reason that there needs to be a court dedicated to this issue. The mental health specialty court is an informed choice program, so those that go that route have made the decision to do so on their own and can leave the program at any time.

“Research shows that mental health courts do reduce recidivism. They increase public safety, and they strengthen our community. It shows a positive effect on participants' rehabilitation and criminal behavior during and after their participation,” Mattila said.

Hays County Director of Judicial Services Randy Foken said what is most important to address first are the bottom two components in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs — physiological and safety needs — only then can the others be addressed.

“We have to start right here at physiological needs,” Foken said. The courts must help find the resources for shelter, food and safety.

“These are their two priorities. I don’t care what program we put them into, until we’ve addressed those. Nothing else matters,” Foken said.

Texas has 52 counties that have a specialty court and 25 that have one or more.

Executive Director of the Texas Judicial Commission on Mental Health Kristi Taylor said. “If you’re a county of 200,000 or more, you are required to try to create a mental health court.”

To get specialty courts started requires that judges in Central Texas be determined, she explained. “It’s been a labor of love, so I recognize the work that's being done, but I think it should be so much easier. Every county should be able to create something like this,” Taylor concluded.