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Gap in Maine
Juvenile Code spurs
action, legislation
(April 2006
Issue)
By Nan Shnitzler
In 10 years with the Cumberland County district attorney's office,
a recent Scarborough case is the first example Assistant District
Attorney Christine Thibeault has seen of a quirk in the Maine Juvenile
Code that releases from state authority juvenile defendants found
not criminally responsible by reason of insanity. As chief of the
juvenile justice division, she hopes the case will drive legislative
change.
According to Thibeault and news reports, in March 2005, a 16-year-old
girl with a history of mental illness stabbed herself and a 20-year-old
girlfriend, who has Asperger's syndrome. The juvenile was charged
with aggravated assault and attempted murder. State forensic experts,
a psychologist and psychiatrist examined the evidence and concluded
the defendant was not criminally responsible at the time.
The defendant pleaded not criminally responsible by reason of insanity.
In a January hearing, the judge agreed. The court was satisfied
the juvenile did not pose a risk to herself or others and she was
released to her parents. But even if the juvenile had killed her
friend or did pose a risk, from a strict legal standpoint, Thibeault
says, the juvenile court could not mandate any action. Recourse
to contain a juvenile would have to be sought in a separate proceeding
in civil court.
"We have proceedings for delinquency in juvenile court and proceedings
for dependency in child protective court, but a kid who's found
not criminally responsible by reason of insanity doesn't fit neatly
into either court," Thibeault says.
A new law, even if not often invoked, would significantly impact
the state department charged with caring for a juvenile, most likely
Health and Human Services (HHS), because very few facilities are
equipped to deal with a potentially violent, mentally ill young
offender, Thibeault says. The trend in Maine has been to reduce
residential placements in favor of in-home services.
By moving away from institutional settings, we have perhaps "shot
ourselves in the foot dealing with people who need more intensive
treatment," says state Sen. Philip Bartlett (D-Cumberland).
He says new legislation is necessary to give courts, prosecutors
and treatment providers greater authority to craft solutions for
specific cases. But he hates to do anything mandatory.
"You want to give parents the flexibility to care for their child
without too much red tape," Bartlett says.
At the request of the Scarborough victim's mother, Denise Kring,
Bartlett proposed legislation to send juvenile offenders found not
criminally responsible into HHS custody until their eighteenth birthdays.
The proposal did not clear the Legislative Council, but Bartlett
says he will re-submit legislation, crafted with more options, in
the next regular session. Mandating years of custody overlooks instances
where medication and therapy could get a youngster back into society
much more quickly, he says.
More imperative to Kring was another bill she urged Bartlett to
submit, to require Maine's emergency responders, police and prosecutors
to be trained to recognize and deal with people with developmental
disorders such as autism and Asperger's.
After a January public hearing, John Rogers, head of the Maine
Criminal Justice Academy, agreed to immediately provide such training
for new cadets and to include it in the 2008 recertification cycle
for officers, according to Bartlett, so the bill was taken off the
table.
U.S. Probation Officer Matt Brown, the father of a boy with autism,
worked with Bartlett and Kring to develop the bill. He says that
Kring's daughter had been treated "horribly" by the criminal justice
system because Asperger's prevented her from communicating clearly
and consistently.
Via the Autism Society of Maine, Brown offers an academy-certified
training course for free that has been taken by several hundred
police officers, out of about 4,000 in the state. He and other autism
awareness advocates want the academy to offer training geared toward
law enforcement officers, not simply generic information
Brown's course demonstrates how easily criminal justice personnel
could misinterpret the behavior of people with developmental disabilities.
For example, sensitivities to lights, sounds and touch could deteriorate
into a "mental meltdown" at a scene of flashing police lights, blaring
sirens and first responders who think they are helping by offering
a hand.
"They get agitated and police misinterpret it. That's what we key
in on in our program," Brown says.
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