Friday, March 9, 2007 | 7 a.m.
By the time Teresa was last arrested, her mental illness had fully taken root.
She had lost her job as food and beverage manager for a large Strip hotel. Because of her manic depression, mood disorders and psychotic breaks with reality, she could barely function.
"I barely ate, never showered, wore the same clothes," Teresa said. "I was a vagrant in my own home."
From 1995 to 2005 Teresa was arrested nine times after domestic disputes with her boyfriend. The last time she was picked up, on Feb. 2, 2005, she was thrown into the psychiatric wing of the Clark County Detention Center.
That's where the Mental Health Court found her. She didn't know it then, but her cycle of arrests, hospitalizations and jailings was over.
The innovative Clark County specialty court began in December 2003 with a $150,000 grant from the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Assistance. The state-funded program steers mentally ill criminal defendants or probationers toward treatment and an independent life. Similar programs exist in Washoe County and Carson City.
The funding goes toward everything needed to help the participants, including housing, medications, food stipends, transportation and case service coordinators.
On Wednesday, District Judge Jackie Glass, administrator of Clark County's Mental Health Court, described the court's successes for the Senate/Assembly Joint Subcommittee on General Government in Carson City. She and other county officials have asked the Legislature more than double the court's funding to $2 million so that, at a minimum, it can double its caseload.
Glass presented statistics on the reduced arrests and days in jail for those enrolled in the program.
The roughly 75 people in Mental Health Court as of June 30 had been arrested on felony and misdemeanor charges 769 times in the two years prior to joining the program. Those men and women were arrested 82 times since being enrolled - an 89 percent drop.
The same group spent 14,690 days in jail in the two years prior to signing up with the court. Since enrolling, the number dropped to 2,433 days.
"There's a tremendous need for this court," Glass said in an interview. "But for their mental illness, these people would not be committing these crimes."
In 2006, Clark County officials note, 236 people were referred to the court from various criminal justice and mental health agencies - more than three times the number that currently can be allowed in.
Although the court mostly takes on repeat offenders, officials say these people are often committing the smallest types of crimes, including vagrancy-related offenses.
The participants, who are screened to make sure they do not have overly violent backgrounds, typically stay with the court for two or three years before, hopefully, graduating.
The court convenes in two sessions every Thursday, and runs differently than just about any other type of court .
A "team" approach is used, involving the judge, police, prosecutors, public defenders, probation officers and county mental health workers. They convene before the day's sessions to discuss the status of each case.
Before a recent Mental Health Court session, its assigned prosecutor, Owen Porterfield, waded into the courtroom gallery, smiling warmly and engaging in chitchat.
"How are you doing today?" he asked one participant.
"My, aren't you looking good," he told another.
When the participants spoke to Senior Judge John McGroarty, they did so face to face. By that point, the judge had taken off his robe and come down from the bench to a lectern at the front of the gallery.
McGroarty shook each person's hand and asked how he or she was.
He congratulated several participants for successfully following the rules and regulations at Pathways, the Salvation Army-run center where many of the Mental Health Court participants live while taking life- and job-skills classes and receiving treatment that sometimes includes chemical dependence therapy.
Others had issues, including one woman who said she resented her lack of access to a car. She wasn't independent, she complained loudly, and couldn't get to her treatment classes without taking a bus. She threatened to commit herself back to jail if she didn't get what she wanted.
McGroarty replied that he couldn't treat her differently from anyone else in Mental Health Court. After consulting privately with his team, and speaking with the woman's mother, who was present, they compromised: The mother would drive her daughter to the treatment sessions.
The program's participants often get to know one another and seem to root for one another to succeed.
They are a societal cross section: young, middle-aged and occasionally elderly; white, black and Hispanic; male and female. Some come to the hearings straight from the county jail, but the majority have been released pending successful completion of the program.
McGroarty, who has been overseeing Mental Health Court cases since its inception, said afterward that the original idea was to try to get revolving-door felons with mental health issues out of jail.
He said that the supportive, 12-step feel of the court sessions is intentional.
"It's not a 'gotcha' program. It's a 'we want to work with you' program," McGroarty said. "It's not punitive, it's not rehabilitative. It's therapeutic."
The team approach is vital, court officials say, because the cases often are complex. Many participants have been homeless. And officials confirm that the percentage of people in the court who are also drug-addicted is as high as 87 percent - including many hooked on methamphetamine .
Veteran prosecutor Porterfield says his role in the proceedings is much less well defined than it is in a typical criminal court. But that's not a bad thing, he says.
"Here, it's very satisfying because you get to know (the participants) very well," Porterfield said. "It's one of the most unusual experiences you'll ever have as a prosecutor, and one of the most delightful."
C.J. Yao, diversion program manager for Southern Nevada Adult Mental Health Services, has been with the program since mid-2004. She said the transformations she has seen have been nothing short of amazing, and not just among the 14 people who have graduated.
There have been setbacks in individual cases, she said. Participants sometimes relapse, or don't take their medication, or get arrested. Through June, Clark County statistics show that 22 people have been "terminated" from the program and five have died.
"Their lives are a mess when we meet them," Yao said. When they enter the program, "some folks struggle with getting up or making their bed, let alone taking their meds or holding down a job."
Teresa, just months away from graduating, was one such mess when Yao found her on the fourth-floor psychiatric wing of the Clark County Detention Center. She had been referred to Yao by another member of the Mental Health Court's team, Dr. Craig Essex, chief psychiatrist at the jail.
By the time Teresa was admitted into Mental Health Court, her three children had been taken away from her, which only added to her distress.
This was especially shocking to Teresa, 41, because before she slid into chaos, she had worked as a small-business owner in her native North Carolina and was doing well in her hotel jobs in Las Vegas. She was functioning.
With the court's help, she's receiving therapy. She is a waitress four days a week at a local family restaurant. She's on medications that allow her simply to live without fear of breaking down and causing harm to herself or others.
Perhaps most important, she said, the court helped her regain custody of her kids.
"In this program, they walk you through life to just help you be part of society again," Teresa said. "They had faith in me that I could get better."
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