Everyone wants to believe the fallacy, so the periodic court reports are very important. I recently spoke to a public defender from Rockford, IL who hasn't had a conversation with her client, a guy enslaved at EMHC as Unfit to Stand Trial (UST), for a couple years. In theory, it's everyone's job to get this guy fit for his day in court, to either be found guilty and sentenced, or not. He tells me he wants to go to trial, he wants a fair one, and I believe him. He certainly understands the charges against him and the legal process. But his attorney says she can't work with him (or "he's not capable of assisting in his own defense") because he's totally delusional.
It's funny though, I know this guy, I've attended his monthly treatment plan review meetings ("staffings") a number of times over the last year while his lawyer was refusing to return his calls. He seems completely normal to me: articulate, good humor, no strange ideas that seem delusional at all. And no one on his treatment team ever mentions "delusions" that they notice. As best I can tell, the public defender in Rockford is the only person noticing "delusions."
What she's talking about is likely just her disagreement with a client about how to defend a case. She doesn't believe his story, or she doesn't like him, he acts like he thinks he's smarter than she is. It's a PD's job to figure that out though, not to hire "doctors" to fix it (she already gets her salary, and the expense of her office is on the taxpayers). What's supposed to happen is a jury and a trial, not interminable, useless "treatment" (yes all my quotation marks are extremely sarcastic) for $800+/day. For godssakes, make it work, earn your salt! Fine, maybe this guy will be convicted. But he and the citizens of the state are your clients, you're a Public Defender.
When I tried to question the whole situation, I was referred to the court reports, which the PD says she reads as authoritative proof (every one of them) that her client is hopelessly delusional. I doubt it, because the court reports are (at least ostensibly) written by the clinical treatment team, and I speak to those people. Those expert mental health professionals all say the only reason this slave is stuck on the EMHC plantation is the court (and the PD) won't take him back and give him a trial. They don't know any medical treatment for that.
Court reports can be said to say almost anything because they are cobbled together out of competing viewpoints from hedging, insecure, corrupt bureaucrats, cut and pasted, and generally incoherent for any purpose beyond CYA. Following are excerpts from a recent court report.... I've written a lot about James Baker over the years. He played basketball every day when I first knew him, and kept up with much younger guys very well. Now he's a gentle and polite, charming elderly man who cannot walk without assistance; he's certainly no threat to anyone at EMHC, or anywhere else. I'm quite sure everyone on his treatment team would say the same. Just incidentally, he hasn't needed any psych drugs for decades.
Mr. Baker continues to maintain stability on the unit... (he) has maintained his assigned treatment group schedule....He remains at his baseline behavior. He remains calm and not a threat to himself and to others and maintains stability on the unit. He completed his unit incentive program and participated in the unit monthly event. He is actively engaged in group and is often observed verbally contributing to discussions in a meaningful way. In Cognitive Behavioral Skills, Mr. Baker was noted as providing insightful responses and participating in the cognitive re-framing activity.Mr. Baker advocated for himself properly with a new trust fund staff that did not complete a transaction as requested. His debit balance account was corrected on 01/03/2024.Mr. Baker is is in the process of being referred for placements, then planning to be recommended for conditional release.... He has agreed to go to a nursing home as part of the conditional release process.... Mr. Baker consistently maintains appropriate behavior and observes all hospital protocols while in community....
There is no rational justification for keeping this man under lock and key for $800+ per day on Illinois taxpayers. I honestly don't know who is perpetrating this injustice and this honest services fraud. At one point, it sure seemed like it was Richard Malis-with-malice. But the incriminating signatures on the quoted document are Rose Adler (Social Worker), and Tasheen Mohammed, MD (Psychiatrist).
But back to that court report itself. It's Baker's most recent, with a cover letter dated "January 2024" from Victoria Ingram, Psy.D., to Honorable Tyria B. Walton, Circuit Court Judge in Room 304 at 26th and California. (Apparently Vicky Ingram is unable to figure out the precise date when she signs court reports, or she has some practical reason for not wanting to incriminate herself about timing.) In addition to the above positive portions, the text also includes:
He has chronic delusions.... He needs to cooperate with additional testing to verify the extent of any cognitive delusions to assist in determining further treatment recommendations and appropriate aftercare placement. Due to the nature of his mental illness he constitutes a threat to public safety, if not treated in a properly supervised and structured setting.
So according to Adler and Mohammed, on one hand Baker is well behaved, with adequate intelligence and self control, and EMHC is working on a conditional release recommendation to move him to a nursing home. But on the other hand, he has (unspecified) chronic "cognitive delusions" which they want to test for (I'd love to know how they'll do that!) to be sure he won't threaten public safety, even though he can barely walk.
What is a state's attorney and a judge supposed to make of this incoherent report from the mental health "experts" to whom they sold this black man back in 1987, during the ironically recalled "decade of the brain," supposedly to get his disordered brain medically fixed?
It's nonsense and fraud. I can hardly blame the poor, harried PD in Rockford for wanting nothing to do with the whole business, and simply burying her client in the state nuthouse.
It's just that she lies when she says she knows from the court reports he's totally delusional.
The people running this aren't delusional, they lie. It doesn't help.
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