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Do Vets Need Their Own Court Docket?

Legislative proposal draws interest, concerns about cost

By CHRISTIAN NOLAN

About 16,500 Connecticut residents have served in Iraq and Afghanistan since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, many of them for two or three tours of duty. Like thousands of their brethren across the country, some have returned home with psychological problems.

Those issues often lead vets to run afoul of the law: the most common offenses being drug or alcohol related, domestic violence, firearms violations and breach of peace.

So Senate Majority Leader Martin M. Looney is introducing legislation that would establish a separate criminal court docket for military veterans.

“Very often the problems veterans have, like post-traumatic stress disorder, manifest themselves into getting into trouble with the law when they get home,” Looney said. Looney said by establishing “their veteran status,” such defendants could then be “referred to treatment” rather than jailed.

Connecticut attorneys and state officials seem divided by the proposal. The biggest concern is the potential costs associated with creating a separate docket and whether it is appropriate for the legal system to treat veterans differently.

Dr. Linda Schwartz, the commissioner for the state Department of Veterans Affairs, gives her full support to the idea.

“We know that some of the returning veterans are feeling the effects of being in the combat zone,” said Schwartz, who was a nurse during the Vietnam War. “We know that sending people to prison is not really helping address the real issues. If we could do early intervention, especially those with substance abuse problems, it really will work better. In the long run it’s good for the veterans, their family and the community.”

However, Bristol attorney Kevin Creed, a 27-year Army veteran, is as strongly opposed to the idea as Schwartz is for it.

“I disagree wholeheartedly. This panders to a belief that veterans, because of their service, are mentally or morally different from the rest of the people in society,” said Creed. “This would only add to that stereotype.”

Creed opined that if 100,000 civilians and 100,000 war veterans of similar ages and sex were tracked over a period of time, civilians would have the greater incidences of minor crimes like domestic violence and drug or alcohol abuse.

“It’s a Hollywood myth that veterans come home and have these problems,” said Creed. Creed said from his experience as a lawyer, money would be better spent going towards better medical care for veterans.

But Southington attorney John T. Nugent, who spent 37 years in the Navy, thinks a separate court might be a positive move for the state.

“I’ve done a lot of representing of veterans in various courts and it might be a step in the right direction,” said Nugent, who is chairman of the Connecticut Bar Association’s Veterans and Military Affairs Committee.

Nugent said it is important that veterans identify themselves as such when they become ensnared in the legal system, or nobody would know to give them the appropriate help. Schwartz said she often encourages lawyers to ask clients if they were in the service.

Preliminary Discussions

If the legislature were to create a veterans docket, the state’s Judicial Branch would ultimately have to implement it. Chief Court Administrator Barbara M. Quinn said it is “labor intensive to run special dockets of any kind.”

“I do think they’re in need of some different kind of handling at times,” Quinn said of veterans. “But in these economic times it’d be difficult for us to find the resources necessary to have a special docket.”

Quinn said the Judicial Branch does not keep annual numbers on how many state court defendants have served in the military. But she acknowledged that the branch has had preliminary discussions with Schwartz about establishing a separate docket. “But we haven’t really moved forward because of the implications for funding,” Quinn said.

Schwartz, however, suggested that the special docket might not be so labor intensive, and that special veterans court sessions would not need to be held on a daily basis.

She compared the process to the annual “stand down” that the state Department of Veterans Affairs hosts in Rocky Hill annually where judges and magistrates come in and handle about 125 minor cases in one day to help veterans.

The veterans docket bill must first make it through the General Assembly’s Judiciary Committee. State Sen. Andrew McDonald, a co-chair of the committee, said he thinks the bill ultimately “has a very good chance of passing.”

McDonald’s reservations are also financial. He said his committee must first discuss with the Judicial Branch if there’s a cost effective way to enact such a docket. He said a public hearing would likely take place sometime in March.

Regardless of the fate of Looney’s proposal, the federal government has already given Connecticut $2 million for a “jail diversion” program to help veterans with trauma-related disorders get back on their feet.

Jim Tackett, director of veterans’ services at the state Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, said the grant will fund a five-year program that will start this summer in the Norwich area and then branch out across the state.

Although state mental health officials would not offer an opinion on the separate court docket, a spokesman said officials would be in contact with Looney.

“We’ll be having discussions on how to bring these efforts together to have the greatest impact because there’s a need among the veterans for jail diversion,” said the spokesman, Wayne Daily. “When treatment is the more appropriate choice, as opposed to incarceration, it’s in the best interests of the individual, their family and society. We want to see that happen.”•