The female was in her jail jumpsuit sitting in the in-custody box of the courtroom. The female obviously had some mental issues and kept interrupting the judge and prosecutor. The judge appeared to not pick up on the mental illness cues and spoke to the woman like he was scolding a small child. At one point, he had her removed from the courtroom. The issue debated was that the woman needed a mental evaluation before the case could go forward. However, case law requires that a mental evaluation of a person in-custody needs to be completed within eight days. The woman had been in jail longer than that, and the next available mental health evaluation could not be done for two weeks. The court had no choice, but to release the woman. Her defense attorney then argued to have the protection order removed. The woman told the court that it is her dad, and she needs to see him. Her request was denied, and the order remained in effect. This was frustrating to all that the woman was released, and everyone knew she would violate the order, to include the woman. The very next day, the woman violated the order by going to her father’s home. The woman was arrested and fought with the police officers. She even took one of the officer’s batons. Our system on mental health is truly flawed, and we are lucky that this woman did not seriously hurt anyone (FIND QUOTE). We have learned in this course that statistics has shown that mental illness can be a contributed factor in domestic abuse. A lot of the statistics were conducted on male domestic violence offenders. In fact “male offenders were 13 times more likely than non-offenders to be mentally ill” (Buzawa, E., Buzawa, C., & Stark 2012. p.94). With my experience and what I saw in that courtroom, mental illness can also be present in woman
The female was in her jail jumpsuit sitting in the in-custody box of the courtroom. The female obviously had some mental issues and kept interrupting the judge and prosecutor. The judge appeared to not pick up on the mental illness cues and spoke to the woman like he was scolding a small child. At one point, he had her removed from the courtroom. The issue debated was that the woman needed a mental evaluation before the case could go forward. However, case law requires that a mental evaluation of a person in-custody needs to be completed within eight days. The woman had been in jail longer than that, and the next available mental health evaluation could not be done for two weeks. The court had no choice, but to release the woman. Her defense attorney then argued to have the protection order removed. The woman told the court that it is her dad, and she needs to see him. Her request was denied, and the order remained in effect. This was frustrating to all that the woman was released, and everyone knew she would violate the order, to include the woman. The very next day, the woman violated the order by going to her father’s home. The woman was arrested and fought with the police officers. She even took one of the officer’s batons. Our system on mental health is truly flawed, and we are lucky that this woman did not seriously hurt anyone (FIND QUOTE). We have learned in this course that statistics has shown that mental illness can be a contributed factor in domestic abuse. A lot of the statistics were conducted on male domestic violence offenders. In fact “male offenders were 13 times more likely than non-offenders to be mentally ill” (Buzawa, E., Buzawa, C., & Stark 2012. p.94). With my experience and what I saw in that courtroom, mental illness can also be present in woman