Blog Posts

It's Both or Law Enforcement as "Peer Specialists"

8/5/2014

Lou Keel, the Assistant District Attorney that helped to prosecute the case against bombing conspirator Terry Nichols, was arrested Thursday evening for prostitution, after he solicited an undercover female officer for sex.

This is a total embarrassment for the District Attorney's office, and although Mr. Keel has been suspended with pay, he needs to be punished to the full extent of the law, especially since he is a representative of the law.
Nov. 2004

http://www.okctalk.com/general-civic-issues/963-lou-keel-arrested.html

Lou was one of my very first bosses. I thought he was a good guy and a great attorney AND I still do.

I didn't think anything could get as wild & crazy as the Oklahoma County Courthouse when I was there (which has been some time a go), & the Denver Jail is sure working on it.

From my perspective, the closer one gets to the criminal justice system the more absurd & surreal things seem to become.

I'm not the first to observe that those drawn to the ultra-high adrenaline law & order jury trial -- "this is better than sex" -- endeavors are often simply different sides of the same excitement-seeking coin.

Outgoing Denver Sheriff Gary Wilson was chastised when he talked about the "psychological issues" facing officers, and criticized for not focusing enough on "leadership" to correct problems.

I think it is both. Further, I think these lines we draw between the good people (like law enforcement & "us") and the bad people (criminals) -- end up biting us in the backside -- again, and again, and again.

Mental health is suffering a shortage of mental health professionals.

My modest proposal -- train those in the criminal justice system as --- "peer specialists."

I'm not kidding.

"Of Mice and Men"

8/3/2014

Well, I told Mom that I would see her son in the County Jail two weeks ago. I actually just got around to it yesterday.
Tom (not his real name) came into the small jail attorney visiting room. I think what I first noticed was how sweet he looked to be charged with such a serious crime.
Tom is about 30, he has already had a competency exam down at CMHIP (Colorado Mental Health Institute @ Pueblo) and was found competent.
Tom was first hospitalized at "Denver General" in 2000 --- he was about 16.
Then around 2004 (maybe) he was hospitalized at Ft. Logan.
I asked him if he was hooked up with a community mental health center. He said yes -- MHCD. I asked him how he liked the folks with MHCD. He said they were "really nice" and went " out of their way to help me." I asked him if there was anything that they should have done to help him, he couldn't think of anything AND "they were really nice."
Tom has a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia, takes various medications, and is in solitary confinement. Actually, this is Not going to be another rail against solitary confinement because Tom likes it there, he doesn't want to go back to the general jail population. He is concerned he sleeps a lot.
However, during Tom's competency exam he did get to spend a month down at CMHIP and participate in the STEP program. He would like to go back down there. I'll be working to try and make that happen.

From my perspective this bright line we draw between "incompetent", "competent", "sane" or "insane" is arbitrary & capricious. Probably some of you lawyers and jail-house lawyers know what that means -- it means that these grossly imperfect distinctions & categories violate Constitutional protections ensuring due process of the law and equal protection of the law --- in my opinion.

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Why Working in Colorado's Mental Health Un-Systems Feels Like the Diner Scene from "Five Easy Pieces" -- You Might Say At Least We've Graduated From "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" -- But We Can Do Better Than Homelessness

7/28/2014

My guy is a sixty-one year old man who got inappropriately discharged from the Colorado Mental Health Institute @ Pueblo (CMHIP) to the St. Francis Center day program for homeless men in Denver.
How did this happen: well CMHIP was legally obligated to release the man and they couldn't get a housing voucher from Denver.
CMHIP had previously been under the impression that the man wanted to go back to Boulder, but he didn't and the man said they never asked him what he wanted.
The point is my guy & CMHIP were not on the same page.
So I contact Dr. Patrick Fox, Deputy Clinical Director of DHS' Office of Behavioral Health, saying this has to be fixed and can my guy go to Ft. Logan until this is rapidly resolved.
Well let me just say this is no easy process & has to be done via Denver Health, AND it gets done and I am very grateful to Dr. Fox, Dr. Christopher Burke -- Ft. Logan Superintendent, Kathy Malik -- Ft. Logan Director of Social Work, etc.
Well, you could probably see this coming -- things are not resolved rapidly. My guy is taken to an assisted living to visit -- I am very hopeful as is the Ft. Logan staff -- unfortunately the Administrator of the assisted living tells my guy that to stay there he will have to see a psychiatrist & take psychiatric medication.
That isn't the law & it was enough to freak my guy out -- he ended up leaving Ft. Logan before a housing voucher or a placement could be made and went back to St. Francis.
Next, my guy is hooked up with the Manager for Intensive Case Management Paula Jung with Colorado Access who is wonderful. Hallelujah, my prayers have been answered, because I don't have time to be my guy's intensive case manager anymore. Of course, I never had time to do it.
Well next, someone at MHCD (Mental Health Center of Denver) incorrectly tells my guy that he can only use the housing voucher if he sees a psychiatrist.
You guessed it, our guy is afraid to see the psychiatrist, he is also afraid he will ultimately be made to take medication.
So I e-mail everyone & their dog (just a phrase I'm in the habit of using -- I don't think anyone is a "dog") asking for a "reasonable accommodation" in policy, practice, or procedure so that our guy doesn't have to see a psychiatrist to use the housing voucher.
Well, before Susan Niner with the Colorado Department of Local Affairs Division of Housing informed all of us that use of the voucher didn't require seeing a psychiatrist, Jennifer Weaver with the Colorado Attorney General's Office and I were just this side of testing each other's attorney-hood -- No, we were testing each other's attorney-hood.
Okay, in the words of nurse, mental health advocate, and good friend Renee Ryan -- Ding Ding, in our case, Round 13.
There has to be a better way!

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Val's Response to D.J. Jaffee's "8 Myths of Serious Mental Illness"

5/26/2014

Val's Response to “8 Myths of Serious Mental Illness”

1. All Mental Illness is Serious: Red Herring

      I don’t think most people, public administrators, or public clinicians do think that all “mental disorders”, conditions, or situations are created equal or with equal seriousness.

      Further, the public funding for mental health is very complex and comes from multiple sources.

·         The state funds mental health institutes and prisons

·         SAMHSA provides block grants to the states to provide some funding to the community mental health centers

·         And the Big Kahuna is Medicaid – a state and federal partnership; Further:

1.       There is what I call straight Medicaid that has traditionally served individuals on SSI. Medicaid brings with it community mental health services; AND

2. For people with the most serious mental health situations there is Medicaid Long Term Care which can include Medicaid home and community based services.

2. Violence is not associated with mental illness: Man this is complex for a short paragraph

It is not as if one could simply identify all the people with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and say they would have a propensity for violence if not treated.

Further, many studies have found a correlation between ADHD and criminal behavior, AND not everyone.

Many states probably have statutes such as Colorado which provides immunity to mental health professionals in their assessments of danger to self or others, etc. In those cases that go awry, mental health professionals are quick to say that there really is no way to make these determinations.

Of course, it doesn’t stop these same professionals from going into court and testifying under oath that they can make such determinations with reasonable certainty.

Just one of the little fictions our society likes to tell itself because the truth is far from comforting.

Are there people who are violent who have “mental illness,” traumatic brain injury, developmental disabilities, whatever – YES – and if we treated those folks under Medicaid it would be a lot cheaper for the states.

3.   Stigma is a major impediment to care: (D.J. argues that cost is major impediment to care & we agree)

Folks who are homeless or at-risk of involvement with the criminal justice system generally represent “high end users” in Medicaid’s capitated mental health program which means it is going to cost the community mental health system to serve them.

Services such as Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) and Intensive Case Management (ICM) which are expensive should be available to all where such services are “reasonably medically necessary.” I believe that failure to provide such services violates due process, equal protection, and the ADA.

4. Psychiatric hospitals should be replaced by community services.

I believe in a continuum of care. In Colorado we closed a geriatrics unit and a children’s unit that were desperately needed. These closures were done as a result of budget cuts and we were assured that the “rich resources in the community” would take up the slack. Of course, that didn’t happen. People got put in nursing homes that don’t have the expertise to deal with people with mental illness and kids and their parents got stuck in emergency rooms.

Additionally, people in the institutes get “stuck” because their clinical team determines that they are ready for discharge but there is nowhere to go.

We need a continuum of care that includes several levels of care that individuals may move through easily as needed and desired.

5.   Treatments that are involuntary are bad by definition: Man this is complicated – even for 3 paragraphs

A lot of mental health advocates will disagree with me – and I believe that "anosognosia" -- not recognizing one is "ill" -- sometimes is a complicating factor– AND a huge complicating factor is that our treatments aren’t that great.

One can easily have a person who has been delusional for years, maybe even decades, perhaps exhibits "anosognosia" – and the ultimate result of involuntary treatment is PTSD and the delusions are still there.

On the other hand, there other people who might thank the treatment team for helping them.

I’m not aware of any reliable way of determining who is who.

I think what that means is the critical importance of “relationship.” Even those folks who don’t want mental health treatment, generally do want “help.” Providing “disability services” through the Independent Living Centers may be an acceptable and viable option for some folks.

6. People with mental illness are more likely to be victims than perpetrators

Let’s just say this is a ridiculous debate and move on. We probably can't even agree on what "mental illness" is -- AND that is not necessary to recognize that some people are having great difficulty and need "help."

7. Serious mental illness can be predicted and prevented: a lot packed into this paragraph

I think the argument is that SAMHSA allocates a lot of money to prediction and prevention of mental illness – but serious mental illness can’t be predicted or prevented.

Without specifics it’s hard to comment. From my perspective Medicaid, not SAMHSA is the big funder of public mental health services so I would not see this getting to the “root cause” of any problems in mental health funding.

8. Everyone Recovers

I agree that we have to fund science and the National Institute of Mental Health. I don’t think anyone can take the DSM seriously as a scientific document in 2014.

While well-intentioned, the Murphy bill is out of touch with the realities of public mental health financing and the needs of the people it is trying to support.

Orchid Mental Health Legal Advocacy of Colorado would welcome the opportunity to collaborate with the Treatment Advocacy Center and the Mental Illness Policy Organization to better serve the needs of individuals perceived to have mental illness who are homeless, at-risk of incarceration or incarcerated.

Congratulations to D.J. Jaffee for bringing this critical debate to the forefront!

D.J. Jaffee, Executive Director of the national Mental Illness Policy Organization

To see Jaffee's article click title "8 Myths of Serious Mental Illness"

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Psychiatry and the Criminal Justice System: Simplicity on the Near Side of Complexity

5/4/2014

               Let's just say for argument's sake, that at one time in the distant past -- the lawmakers and judges who came up with our criminal law thought they knew what they were doing, whatever the ultimate truth may have been.

               But I would argue that we don't have that luxury anymore. Now psychiatry which has often done such a great job of raising questions AND often struggled and stumbled in accurately answering them, especially in the area of the criminal law, once again appears to be the "Emperor Without Any Clothes."

               While the National Institute of Mental Health is doing its best to push psychiatrists in the direction of "clinical neuroscience,"  we are far from that day. In the meantime, mental health professionals rely on an increasingly outdated yet growing Diagnostic & Statistical Manual (DSM), that is oblivious to the harm it causes by both acts of omission and commission.

               I'm not saying everything in the DSM is wrong, AND I am saying it is definitely "on the near side of complexity."

Further, the DSM cannot reliably be relied upon when we now know that:

there are literally billions and billions of neural circuits in the brain,
our understanding of brain disorders as chemical imbalances is far too simplistic and is actually causing harm (see the Youtube TedxTalk below of Neuroscientist David Anderson from Cal Tech), and
this information is all vitally important to a finding of criminal guilt -- which must be "proven beyond a reasonable doubt."

The Clayton Lockett "botched execution," is also notable not only for the "botched execution" but for another although not unusual reason: in the trial court, a failed "mitigating factors" defense during the penalty phase largely rested on the defense's assertion that Clayton Lockett had PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) and the State argued that Mr. Lockett had instead "Anti-Social Personality Disorder."

Dr. Call told the jury that he had
interviewed Mr. Lockett and tried to administer a personality test but that Mr. Lockett had refused to cooperate.

But even without the personality test, Dr. Call testified, he was able to conclude that Mr. Lockett did not suffer from any mental illness.

Dr. Call asserted that Mr. Lockett displayed no symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Dr. Call testified, however, that Mr. Lockett had anti-social personality disorder and was a psychopath.

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF OKLAHOMA (D.C. No. 5:03-CV-00734-F)

See below a link to Erin Burnett with CNN and with one of Mr. Lockett's attorneys -- Oklahoma criminal defense attorney David Autry. Autry, a brilliant criminal defense attorney, was one of my colleagues many years ago in Oklahoma.

http://outfront.blogs.cnn.com/2014/04/30/inmate-dies-of-heart-attack-after-botched-execution/

See CalTech TedxTalk with neuroscientist David Anderson, making many points, including that we need to have a much more complicated and sophisticated view of the brain beyond simply the brain being bathed in a bag of chemical soup.

This blog was last revised 11/13/2019

Science Up

The Anti-Socials

Personality Disorders: Unscientific & Vague -- Must Be Reformed

New Science Is Amazing & It Has Huge Moral Implicatons --NOW

Hair Analysis, Psychological Analysis, Criminal Law and the Ethical & Moral Imperative to Pull Back

Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., circa 1894

"I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, But I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity." -- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

This quote begins a chapter entitled "On Simplicity and Complexity" in . . . [the] book entitled "The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace" (John Paul Lederach). The thesis of the chapter is that you have to "complexify before you simplify" (33) because the simplicity that comes before knowing all of the varying in sundry complicating factors in a situation is really worthless, inane and naïve. But, often times, the true answer is also remarkably simple: you just have to be on the far side of complexity in order to see it clearly.

http://five-small-stones.blogspot.com/2008/12/simplicity-on-far-side-of-complexity.html

[Parenthetically, I first came across this quotation of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr's. from self-help and business leadership guru Stephen Covey]

Dr. Tom Insel, Director of the National Institute of Mental Health

Currently, patients with mental disorders are treated episodically with medications that are focused on symptoms and not on the core pathology.

The available treatments are slow, incomplete, and can be limited by adverse effects.

In mental disorders, just as in the rest of medicine, better understanding of pathophysiology should yield diagnosis based on biomarkers and treatments based on rational designs targeting the pathophysiology

Dr. Elias Zerhouni, Director of the National Institutes of Health

“The explosion of data about the brain is overwhelming conventional ways of making sense of it," said Elias A. Zerhouni, M.D., Director of the National Institutes of Health. "Like the Human Genome Project, the Human Brain Project is building shared databases in standardized digital form, integrating information from the level of the gene to the level of behavior. These resources will ultimately help us better understand the connection between brain function and human health.”

King's College London

Of particular interest, see:

Psychopathy Linked to Specific Structural Abnormalities in the Brain (2012)

Read it and weep.

And after you've wept, let's work together to see that our badly beaten criminal justice system comports with reality and constitutional principles of due process, equal protection, and fundamental justice.

We can get to the far side of complexity, but pretending we are already there is literally killing us.

Now Let Me Get This Straight -- Are the People with Mental Illness the "Good" People or the "Bad" People?

3/26/2014

There is something that is sometimes very difficult to talk about in the mental health advocacy community -- that is the people who commit crimes who have a mental illness.
There are a lot of reasons for this, below is only my top four (let me know yours) :

People with so-called "mental illness" are twice as likely as anyone else to be the victim of a crime.
There are literally 10s of millions of people in the US with some type of "mental illness," and even with the U.S.'s high incarceration rates, it's pretty obvious that the vast, vast, vast majority are not committing crimes.
STIGMA -- when people talk about the stigma of mental illness, often what is referred to is the fear that others perceive you as a possible mass murderer. Distancing oneself from that perception would have a lot of advantages, along with a lot of truth for most people.
People with "mental illness" hold similar views to the general public, wondering if the criminal bad behavior of others cannot be attributed to schizophrenia, bipolar, or PTSD -- isn't the person just "evil"?

And Yet:
From my perspective many people in prison and jail do have a "mental illness," including ADHD or various "developmental disabilities" along with assorted brain injuries [Parenthetically, I do realize that "mental illness" is not the same as the state's definition of insanity].
And since I believe that, the current system of incarceration and punishment seems immoral to me.
I'm also, for a mental health advocate, fairly paternalistic and as far as I am concerned -- Safety First.
I know that some of the most kind, compassionate, and pragmatic people are in the mental health professional and advocacy communities.
We're working with others to build a Coalition to address some of these issues that involve the incarceration of people with mental illness. Further, this problem falls particularly heavy on people of color and the poor.
If you would like to participate, please contact Orchid -- [email protected] .

Nina Simone's version of "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood"

"Duty to Warn" and "Duty to Provide Services"

3/7/2014

We have no objection to H.B. 14-1271 the so-called “Duty to Warn” bill (mental health professionals warning third parties of threats made by patients) if such a duty to warn is accompanied by a concurrent duty to contact Community Mental Health designees for an immediate treatment plan review and provision of additional home and community based services, including scattered site supportive housing and Assertive Community Treatment (ACT), if warranted.

We believe that certification and incarceration of people with mental illness represent treatment failures.

Whether in H.B. 14-1271 or other legislation or policy, all measures designed to increase safety for the general public with respect to the perceived dangerousness of some people with mental illness must be coupled with commensurate review and increase when necessary of services for the individual with mental illness.

This raises a lot of questions that would need to be hashed out – non-Medicaid, etc. AND we think it is worth it – policymakers need to understand that these safety concerns need to be met with increased or better service delivery.

The youtube video above is from Canada and eloquently makes the case for scattered site supportive housing and Assertive Community Treatment (ACT).

It's not that Colorado doesn't have supportive housing or ACT -- just that we don't have near enough of it.

Guess what -- scattered site supportive housing and ACT are not cheap. AND scattered site supportive housing and ACT are the most effective treatment modalities for persistent and severe mental illness.

When we are doing that cost-benefit analysis -- let's realize as Corrections officials keep telling us that most people get out of jail and prison, and more often than not -- they are worse than they were before.

"You Never Know What A Jury Will Go Off On"

2/6/2014

Trial attorneys spend a lot of time trying to do everything they can to curry favor and not offend a jury because "you never know what a jury will go off on."

It could be totally irrelevant from one's own reading of the law or the facts but jury nullification (the jury disregarding the law and/or the facts) is alive and well in the American jury system -- and by way of reaching analogy -- in some responses to blog posts.

I thought I had composed a concise, compelling post against the criminalization of mental illness "A Rose By Any Other Name" (see below) -- and the desperate, crying need for public policy change. I still think that--- scientifically, rationally, logically, morally, and passionately.

But one's intended main idea is not always what resonates with people. My respected colleague and Orchid contributor Amy Smith was offended by all the youtube videos -- save the one featuring Colorado Nursing Home Transition Coordinator and Disability Activist Dawn Russell.

By way of partial response to Amy's Rebuttal to my blog, I would say that I think Caltech researcher David Anderson's extremely compelling work could be used to construct a well-reasoned argument against forced medication based on his scientifc analysis that some psychiatric medication often does more harm than good because it works on the entire brain rather than specific neural circuits.

Further, with respect to sufficiency of the evidence for the biological basis of some mental "concerns," I would just note that persuasion is whatever is. If someone says they are not convinced, they are not convinced. And if you have any doubt that Amy is not convinced, just read her rebuttal.

I believe in a "marketplace of ideas," and welcome original thinkers such as Amy and others to Orchid.

A Rose By Any Other Name

1/24/2014

              Prior to starting Orchid, I worked as the Senior Attorney for the Protection & Advocacy Program for Individuals with Mental Illness (PAIMI) at The Legal Center for People with Disabilities and Older People in Denver. Our federal statutory charge was to investigate allegations of abuse, neglect, and rights violations involving people with mental illness in facilities-- mental institutes, nursing homes, jails, etc. --  across the state of Colorado.

              Sometimes facility staff or other people working with the person in question would describe the person as "manipulative."    Some time ago, the pugnacious and beautiful Dawn Russell, who is now a Colorado Medicaid Nursing Home Transition Coordinator,  counseled me that people with disabilities may be perceived as being "manipulative" when they are really just trying to survive.

             Below, see Dawn Russell , "Punishment for Misbehavior", on youtube recounting her experience as a child at the "Crippled Children's Hospital" in Memphis, Tennessee. Her parents lived far away in the Mississippi Delta.   Dawn was placed in "Crippled Children's" at age 3.

              Like Dawn, I'm a pretty emotional person. I cry easily -- I cried watching Dawn's youtube video and hearing about Ryan Pettigrew's story of bipolar disorder, abandonment and solitary confinement-- but as Dawn and the folks with Atlantis and ADAPT would say, "PISS ON PITY."   What's needed is policy change.

              Colorado has been a leader in home and community based services for people with physical disabilities; in fact, many people "escaped" from states heavily reliant on institutions and nursing homes on what is referred to in the Disability Community as the "Underground Railroad to Denver."

             It's not like it's a piece of cake for people with physical disabilities in Colorado, but compared to people perceived as having serious mental illness (SMI)-- it does seem better.

            From my perspective, we put the really "bad" ADHDers in prison as well as assorted other individuals with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, PTSD, traumatic brain injury, learning disabilities -- because to acknowledge their disabilities would pretty much upend our current system of justice.

          That is not to say that most people perceived to have these disabilities commit crimes, just that people with those diagnoses are grossly over-represented in the criminal justice system.

           Further, it is not so much that a person with a mental disability didn't intend the crime as the fact that they wouldn't have "intended" it but for their disability.

Please see above a TedxTalk by Caltech researcher David Anderson who makes many intriguing and welcome scientific observations regarding mental illness, medication, ADHD, and the very real possibility of upping our game scientifically on "mental illness" and other brain diseases.

A small percentage of children with ADHD develop Oppositional Defiant Disorder, of those a very small percentage will develop Anti-Social Personality Disorder in adulthood. Early treatment is recommended.

US Gentleman Describes His Experience with Undiagnosed ADHD

UK appears to be ahead of the US in recognizing connection between ADHD and crime.

The identification and management of ADHD offenders within the criminal justice system:

a consensus statement from the UK Adult ADHD Network and criminal justice agencies (2011)

SEE ORCHID CONTRIBUTOR & MENTAL HEALTH ADVOCATE AMY SMITH'S REBUTTAL.

A Rose By Any Other Name was revised Jan. 3, 2022

"Even A Dog Distinguishes Between Being Stumbled Over and Being Kicked"

12/28/2013

Most of the records agree that early criminal law developed from the blood feud and rested upon the desire for vengeance. It is worthy of note that the criminal law concerned itself with those injuries which were highly provocative and the most injurious of these are the intentional ones. Justice Holmes wrote: "Vengeance imports a feeling of blame and an opinion, however distorted by passion, that a wrong has been done. It can hardly go very far beyond the case of a harm intentionally inflicted; even a dog distinguishes between being stumbled over and being kicked ...The early English appeals for personal violence seem to have been confined to intentional wrongs."

EUGENE J. CHESNEY---* A.M., J.D., Member of the Cleveland Bar-Graduate Student in Criminology, Western Reserve University. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology Volume 29
Issue 5 January-February Article 2 Winter 1939
"Concept of Mens Rea in the Criminal Law"

  The Criminal Law's focus on "mens rea"--mental thing-- or "intentional wrongs" goes back as far as ancient Roman law, according to some legal historians.

         However, as Justice Holmes observed the concern regarding intentional harm goes beyond humans and is likely shared by many animals.

         It probably has always been important to be able to distinguish between those that hurt us on purpose and those who hurt us by accident.

         St. Augustine's writings on evil motive were very influential in the development of England’s legal system and America's criminal law was largely based on English law.

         Sir William Blackstone's famous commentaries on the laws of England addressed "mens rea" and admonished that the "guilty mind" was the most important element of the crime.

         In modern times, the criminal law's focus on "mens rea" or criminal intent, has spawned no shortage of philosophical debates regarding free will and determinism.

         However, these debates have done relatively little to address the pragmatic problems of the administration of justice and what to do with people who are admittedly dangerous.

        In an effort to balance the ancient need to end the blood feud or for vengeance, and  acknowledge some scientific reality we've come up with some interesting modern legal constructs such as "civil commitment of dangerous sexual predators" and "guilty but mentally ill."

To my mind, neuroscience and the criminal law are on something of a collision course.

I'm not aware of any neuroscientist worth his or her salt who would testify as to what degree of free will any of us is using at any particular given moment, but we have no problem convicting people "beyond a reasonable doubt" and sentencing them to death.

         Does that mean I believe we don't have free will or everything is determined? No, I believe that old debate won't get us there. By "there," I mean a rational and compassionate system of justice that protects the community and is also consistent with ever evolving science and standards of humanity, love and compassion.

It's complicated -- and I believe requires modified approaches scientifically, legally, and emotionally.

        Here in Colorado, which is a much less death penalty friendly than my home state of Oklahoma, we have a man on death row who was after incarceration diagnosed with bipolar disorder and prescribed medication.

        As we argue for the individual assessment and treatment of people who commit heinous crimes, we must out of the depths of our love provide emotional and substantial financial resources to address the real and profound needs, desires, and concerns of the survivors.

        Sometimes opponents of the death penalty such as myself say that the death penalty is motivated by "hate." Having served under one of the most "death-penalty winniest" District Attorney's in the history of this country -- Oklahoma County's string-tie Bob Macy -- I can tell you the motivation is much more complicated and it does include love for the victims and concern for the community.

        We still have to end the blood feud -- let's work with the victims and the community to pragmatically provide greater safety than what we are currently doing. Further, we all have an interest in "transforming the flames of anger" into something worthy of the human being.

        I think I'm going to log onto the Denver Foundation and make a donation to The Claire Davis Arapahoe Community Fund.

P.S. I have slightly edited this blog post in an effort to make my references to "free will" consistent as a matter of style pursuant to Mollie's comment. Thanks, Mollie.