Brooklyn Zoo by Darcy Lockman Read Free Book Online

and procedures, at minimum knowing or being able to learn what a judge and jury do.
    The second three criteria were less black-and-white, leaving room for debate among assessors. A defendant must be able to establish a working relationship with his attorney. He must be able to choose rationally among the various legal alternatives available to him and to understand the possible outcomes and consequences of each choice. Finally, he must be sufficiently emotionally stable to maintain coherence throughout the stressful process of a trial. Varying widely across jurisdictions, anywhere between 1.2 and 77 percent of those referred for competency evaluations are found unfit. Dr. Wolfe told us that the Brooklyn forensic team deemed more defendants incompetent than those in any other borough. He was obviously proud of this—of the integrity they brought to the justice system and the protection they provided these defenseless defendants—which made me excited to be a part of it, too.
    When Dr. Wolfe finished, he returned to his cubicle. It was still early. “What happens now?” I asked one of the others.
    “We wait here,” he said. “When the doctors go down to the holding cells, they take us with them, two at a time, to watch.”
    Dr. Wolfe overheard. “Actually,” he chimed in, “I’m going to treatment court this morning. Only one of you can come. Any takers?” I had never heard of treatment court, and I did want to go but wasn’t sure what the etiquette was in the group. I waited, though not very long, to see whether anyone else volunteered. When no one did, I stood up, and Dr. Wolfe and I made our way out of the office to ride the elevator downstairs.
    Was I expected to know what treatment court was? Was I supposed to have any idea whatsoever about forensic psychology? I’d figured the rotation would expose me to a branch of my field I knew nothing about, but was that also the expectation that the rotation had of me? I must have looked uneasy because Dr. Wolfe asked, “Everything going okay?”
    “Yes,” I said, but then decided to lay it all on the line, my inexperience and inadequacy: “So what is it we’re doing this morning? What is treatment court?”
    Dr. Wolfe did not look aghast. He explained in his paradoxically good-natured and cantankerous way: “The court recognizes that nonviolent drug offenders aren’t necessarily criminally minded but that they commit crimes to support their drug habits. Locking them up doesn’t make a whole lot of sense; they’re just going to go back to using and crimes that support using as soon as they get out. So they offer an alternative: do a drug treatment program rather than serve jail time. If they complete the program and stay clean for a certain amount of time, the charges are wiped from their record. We’re called to evaluate the defendants eligible for treatment court when their lawyers think there might be mental health issues. So the woman we’re going to see today, we need to find out, first of all, whether she’s interested in a program and, second, if there are psychological issues that need to be addressed in order for her to complete it successfully.”
    This didn’t quite make sense to me, because developing a drug problem was in and of itself evidence of a whole host of messy psychological issues. But I knew I had to shift my thinking according to context. The courts were probably concerned only about the most pronounced psychotic symptoms—hallucinations and delusions and such—and those were whatwe had likely been called in to assess. I resented having to make this adjustment. It felt like selling out. Still, having little knowledge about or faith in the offerings of the justice system, I was surprised that such a reasonable thing as treatment court existed. I let my bad feeling go and thought instead: fantastic.
    The person we sat down across from in a small space adjacent to one of the building’s many courtrooms was less enthusiastic. Maria