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Kane Judge, State Rep Working on Mental Health Court Laws

Posted on: Tuesday, 10 January 2006, 21:00 CST

By Tona Kunz & Adam Kovac

Kane County lacks its own mental health court, but that hasn't stopped the state from looking to the county for advice on how to standardize the courts statewide.

Chief Judge Donald Hudson is working with Cook County officials who operate a mental health court there and state Rep. Patricia Lindner, a Republican from Sugar Grove, to draft legislation overseeing the treatment programs that serve as an alternative to jail.

"Really there is no legislation in the United States that gets into this so it is kind of ground-breaking," Hudson said. "It is an idea whose time has arrived that we have legislation covering it."

Lindner has filed a "shell" bill which preserves a place on the legislative calendar while mental health providers and judicial leaders help her hammer out the bill's specifics.

The courts, which have been growing nationwide during the last decade, use counseling and medication as alternatives to long prison stints.

The legislation will govern who gets into the program, how it operates and what type of after-care is mandated.

The idea took root about five years ago when Kane started a task force to look into creating a mental health court.

Law enforcement officials were looking for some way to deal with the mentally ill found loitering or causing nonviolent disturbances. Housing them in the jail without medication awaiting court hearings wasn't calming them down or breaking the cycle of repeat offending that was eating up officers' time.

"A lot of times the human services area is overlooked in the budget and our society is going to be in trouble if these things aren't addressed," Linder said.

The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill estimates that 16 to 18 percent of the adult prison population suffers from a mental illness.

Before DuPage County launched its court in 2003, a police survey showed that county deputies were spending 1,000 hours a week responding to calls about mentally ill people. Some mentally ill people in the program were arrested up to three dozen times before getting treatment.

Although national social service groups offer guidelines for how to run the programs, only Washington state has state guidelines.

Lindner's legislation is thought to be the first attempt in the nation to set standardized state laws to operate the programs.

Officials hope that will give them a leg up in getting federal funding recently designated for the courts.

"I do think that the more organized the movement is and when there are guidelines then there is more possibility of getting federal funding because it shows the state is serious," Lindner said.

Officials also hope that having the guidelines in place as Kane launches its court later this year will prevent legal questions like those that have arisen with the county's drug court, another treatment-based alternative to prison. That court was started prior to the formation of federal guidelines and has drawn fire about how it was operated.

Plea in kidnap-murder? A plea deal may still be in the works for a man accused in the kidnapping and murder of an Elgin teenager, authorities said.

Armin V. Henderson rejected an offer last month that likely would have required him to testify at trial against his alleged partner in the April 8 death of 19-year-old David Steeves.

But now that he's got a new lawyer, Kane County Assistant Public Defender Ron Haskell, the deal's back on the table.

"My understanding is that it's essentially the same offer that was made before," Haskell said Friday after a hearing on Henderson's case. "We've just been given an opportunity to revisit it."

Henderson, 26, has pleaded not guilty to 18 offenses, including murder, kidnapping, armed robbery and carjacking.

He faces prison if convicted and prosecutors have said he could get a break on the length of his sentence if he cooperates with their case against co-defendant Robert Guyton.

Guyton, 24, is scheduled to stand trial March 6 in Steeves' killing and the outcome could send him to death row if convicted the most serious of his 19 charges.

Elgin police say the two men robbed Steeves of $300 in drug money after he left a house in the 400 block of South Street, shot him in the leg and shoved him in the trunk of his mother's car.

They shot Steeves again - fatally - after they heard him use his cell phone to call 911 from the trunk, and then ditched the car and his body in Rockford, police say.

Henderson is in jail and is set to appear in court again Feb. 3 before Judge Philip DiMarzio.

- Tona Kunz and Adam Kovac cover Kane County courts. To contact Tona, call (630) 587-8631 or send e-mail to tkunz@@dailyherald.com. To contact Adam, call (847) 608-2728 or send e-mail to akovac@@dailyherald.com.

Source: Daily Herald; Arlington Heights, Ill.

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