-Source-The Roanoke Times-
Those involved with the judicial system, from probation officers to public defenders, were seeing the same trend: Young men who had never been in trouble before suddenly were appearing in court.
Ricardo Rigual, a Spotsylvania County Circuit judge who was in General District Court at the time, was mystified. “I went, ‘Wow, what happened here?’ This guy lived the first 25 years of his life with no problems whatsoever. What’s changed?” he wondered.
Then, he looked at the defendant’s report, which spelled out the problem in all caps. It listed service in Iraq or Afghanistan, and that the young veteran had PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or TBI, Traumatic Brain Injury.
“That’s what changed,” the judge realized.
Rigual and Wendy Harris, Spotsylvania’s deputy public defender, weren’t necessarily seeing the same soldiers and sailors, Marines and Coast Guard members over and over.
But they were seeing a lot of them, starting about 2013. Each morning, when Rigual reviewed video arraignments for the day, at least one of the five to 15 men and women in trouble had once been in uniform. “It was enough to get my attention, let me put it that way,” he said. “Everyone who was involved in the system started to notice it,” Harris added.
A NEW PROGRAM
The two, along with commonwealth’s attorneys and police officers who saw the same pattern in Spotsylvania and beyond, put their heads together for solutions. They created the Rappahannock Veterans Docket. It’s not a separate court, such as the Rappahannock Regional Drug Treatment Court. Known as drug court, its participants undergo an intensive program that offers them the chance to have their charges dismissed or reduced, if they get the required services and treatment to overcome their addiction. Read more
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