There is an ongoing battle in a specialized program of the San Diego Court for criminal accused with a serious mental illness, a standoff that could block the program to accept new participants.
Several times since last summer, the district prosecutor’s office asked the judge of the Superior Court supervising the Behavioral Health Tribunal to hear himself in a hearing of cases involving referrals of potential participants to join the judicial program. Judge Cindy Davis generally refused to do so.
The prosecutors fought before a court of appeal of the State, arguing in legal documents that Davis admitted “inappropriate participants”, neglected the contributions of the team that make up the collaborative and “fought” court to hold the participants – who are all criminal defendants – responsible.
“In recent years, we have been more and more alarmed by the decision -making of judge Davis,” said prosecutors in a January document that explains why they are looking for their challenge.
The prosecution agency underlined the admission of a woman who is hungry from her baby to death and to the death by overdose of three participants in a healthy behavioral health court. One had continued on his drug screening tests, but they say that Davis gave him a second chance, not punishment.
It was in these “serious circumstances” that the district prosecutor’s office said that it began to challenge Davis as a judge of the probation affairs referred to the behavioral health court.
“This decision was not taken lightly,” said the petition.
The court, which is bound by the ethical rules prohibiting judges from commenting on pending cases, refused to comment.
Technically, the battle is whether prosecutors can request the challenge of Davis in the hearings to accept defendants in the program. The legal question is whether it is a disputed hearing, the type of hearing where they can request another judge.
Until the Court of Appeal makes a decision, at least two cases remain in a model of detention, and these two accused are sitting in prison while waiting to see if they can join the program.
No new defenders have been accepted in the program since December, although it is not clear why. A lawyer said prosecutors no longer accept having a behavioral health court on the table in the advocacy. The program consists of four phases over at least 18 months. Since last week, there are only two people in the first phase and only one in phase 2.
The District Prosecutor’s Office and the Public Defender Office refused to comment on the issue.
Judicial program for mentally ill defendants
The Behavioral Health Health Court is a small program of the Superior Court of San Diego, offered to a fraction of criminal defendants who respond to qualifications, including the diagnosis of a serious mental illness – often schizophrenia, a schizo -deffective disorder or a bipolar disorder.
The idea is to meet the needs of mentally ill defendants deemed adapted to program offers. Often, those authorized to join go directly from prison to a group home. They receive treatment, medication, group therapy and individual advice.
The authorities sang the praises of the specialized court. County supervisor, Jim Desmond, described it as a “excellent program” and managed to increase the county funding to create more spots for probation.
The Union-Tribune reported in 2022 that the court had a completion rate of 56%, considered as a success rate given the difficulty of the population. Almost 80% of those who finished the program had remained away from criminal problems in the aftermath of the diploma.
“I really consider it to save lives, change my life,” said Davis at the time. “They arrive at a point in their lives where they have entered and outside the hospitals or in and out of prison enough for them to want to make a change.”
It is a collaborative court. At the table there is a judge of the Superior Court who leads the group, with an assistant district prosecutor, a city prosecutor, a public defender, probation agents and an entrepreneur in charge of service and processing.
The group meets every week to talk about who to accept, who is on the right track, who needs help and who fails. The judge makes the final call.
The court has existed since 2009. Davis has managed it since 2019.
The challenges for her began last summer. The context of the conflict – mainly from the point of view of prosecutors – is presented in deposits with the 4th district court of appeal.
The District Prosecutor’s Office declared in court documents that he opposes his decisions concerning who was authorized to enter the program and how participants are sanctioned for violations of the rules.
“The BHC program is in crisis and the people had no choice but to file the peremptory disputes to the responsible judge,” the prosecutors wrote in a judicial file on January 21.
Such challenges to judges have been rare under the district prosecutor Summer Stephan, who has been in office for seven years. The prosecutors’ court documents indicate that it was the third time that his office has challenged a judge, and it was the first time that they have requested the challenge of this judge in several cases.
“The decision to challenge was based on practices observed for a long time by judge Davis to give little weight, if necessary, to the opinions and recommendations of highly qualified mental health experts, or to the other partners, including the people,” wrote the deputy prosecutor Dwain Woodley in a declaration filed with the Court of Appeal.
In the deposits, the prosecutors underlined the cases of “the most disturbing circumstances”, in particular that of a woman who allowed her 2 -month -old daughter to starve, even if her husband – a marine marine posted outside the state – begged her to obtain medical aid for infants after hearing during telephone calls of the baby’s cries.
Prosecutors allege that the woman had no history of documented mental health treatment, a fundamental requirement for the behavioral health court. They declared that Davis admitted the woman to the program “on a strong opposition” not only of them, but also of the treatment team and the representative of the probation department.
The prosecutors said in January that the defendants in two “violent and disturbing affairs” had been referred for screening for potential candidates for the court. One implied the case of a woman accused in the death of her former owner, the other a woman accused of having stabbed her elderly father.
Davis refused to reject himself. These two cases are suspended while prosecutors make calls.
Lawyer Brandon Naidu, who represents the woman accused in the death of her owner, refused to comment on the unanswered dispute. However, he presented arguments in a declaration filed in the case of appeal.
Naidu argued that disputes of the accusation “demonstrate an inappropriate attempt to bypass the perspective that defendants are accepted in a collaborative jurisdiction program with which they do not agree and by abolishing a judge of which they do not like decisions”.
He said that their argument is reduced, in part, to “the complaint according to which judge Davis is biased and unfair because of his admission of certain people on their objections …”
If the prosecutors prevail, Naidu declared in the declaration: “This will undoubtedly affect all collaborative courts, as lawyers who are not satisfied with the judges of the courts which they perceive as being too strict ” and” unjust “towards their customers could now successfully challenge these judges”.
Lawyer Domenic Lombardo is the former immediate president of the San Diego Criminal Defense Bar Association, and he represented several clients before the Behavioral Health Court. He said prosecutors did not put the program on the table in the advocacy agreements.
“I think that judge Davis has shown himself as the type of lawyer with independence and unimportant conviction,” said Lombardo, saying that she was attentive to the participants in the program. “She is the most compassionate personification of the government. And who these people need. “
Refused recusation requests
The legal battle before the Court of Appeal is not exceeded by the substance of the two cases before it, but rather a more technical question: does the law authorize prosecutors to challenge Davis during the hearings to admit the defendants before the collaborative court?
The law requires that the challenges of judges occur only in the hearings where the facts and the law are disputed.
The District Prosecutor’s Office argues that the admission hearing is essentially a sentence determination hearing – the defendant is sentenced to probation and to join the behavioral health court. They argue that the hearing hearings, by nature, are contradictory and disputed.
Each party receives a challenge to a judge. They don’t have to say why they do.
This is not a cover challenge for Davis. Prosecutors only dispute it in cases involving a behavioral health court or mental illness.
When the prosecutors filed their first recusation request last summer, Davis granted it. Judge Paula Rosenstein was assigned to the case. She later learned that the prosecutors had again challenged Davis in another case and that Davis had refused to withdraw. Rosenstein said she agreed with Davis’ reasoning in her refusal to challenge and returned her file to Davis.
Between July and October, Davis denied 11 requests to challenge himself.
In his orders denying the challenges, Davis says that admission hearings do not deal with disputed questions, therefore the law does not require its challenge. As such, she found that the prosecutors had not responded to their burden to force her disqualification.
The deputy public defender at the Behavioral Health Court, lawyer Melissa Tralla, submitted a declaration to the court of appeal in which she says that the Davis order to refuse that the dispute was correct. Tralla said in his statement that law issues are not discussed when they have decided to admit a new participant and that the facts of the case are undisputed.
“Although there may sometimes be a disagreement, more often than not, stakeholders agree to know who is appropriate and who is not appropriate for the BHC,” wrote Tralla.
The legal battle now lies in the court of appeal. The prosecutors asked time to assert their case to a panel of appeal judges. No date has been set.
Originally published:
California Daily Newspapers
