Every week, Superior Court Judge Jaime Román finds a reason among a pile of stuffed manila folders to lead applause in his courtroom.
Both sides of the courtroom join him with genuine joy.
"You are incredibly positive," Román said to a woman standing before him who beamed at his praise. She's a criminal – a mentally ill one.
But she's garnering high praise from a judge, a prosecutor and a probation officer.
Sacramento County's Mental Health Court is diverting mentally ill, habitual, nonviolent offenders away from a cycle that spins them through jail and back on the street.
For a year to 18 months, with intense supervision, classes, medical treatment, unannounced monitoring, housing and transportation assistance – and regular check-ins with Román – they rebuild their lives and stay out of jail.
Mental health court is saving millions in criminal justice costs, as it has in Santa Clara County, supporters say. And it could save much more.
"We're taking people who, through no fault of their own, can't function as a regular part of society and we're helping them," said Siena Riffia, a Sacramento County public defender who works in Mental Health Court.
But just as the new court is hitting stride with stable graduates in school and on the job, the new state budget has virtually gutted the whole effort.
"There is no money," Román said to a handful of stunned clients in his courtroom last week.
In Román's courtroom, Virgil Rheinbolt, 63, sat listening to Román and wondering what's next.
The help he's gotten, including a doctor who fine-tuned his medication for his bipolar condition, is incentive enough.
"I'm doing great," he said. "I don't see shadows on the wall. I don't hear voices and I can sleep," he said.
The $728,000 state grant to the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department that largely paid to run Mental Health Court was cut off midstream, said Sheriff John McGinness.
The money paid for a collaboration of several departments providing social workers, a prosecutor, public defenders, a probation officer, mental health advocates and services such as transportation.
McGinness and other supporters are cobbling together a strategy they hope will at least keep the 33 participants going. Money distributed to counties through the 2004 mental health Proposition 63 is where he plans to turn next.
"We have a humanitarian obligation as well as a public safety one," McGinness said.
Proposition 63 is no blank check, though.
State Sen. Darrell Steinberg championed the 2004 initiative that taxes millionaires and amasses about $1 billion a year for mental health services.
Richly funded, Proposition 63 money comes with limitations that may rule out the Mental Health Court.
Not all mentally ill criminals are suitable for Mental Health Court, said Andrew Smith, a supervising deputy district attorney who screens potential candidates.
Sex crimes and other charges that merit state prison time are not qualified, he said. The typical candidate would have been looking at 150 days or less in jail for charges such as resisting arrest, possessing drugs, and thefts, Smith said.
County figures show that during Sacramento County's initial year with 16 clients, public costs to care for them dropped 88 percent. Arrests among them declined 74 percent.
It's also decreasing crime on the street, Smith said. "Everyone should be happy about that."
Outside Román's courtroom, Jim Hughes, a county probation officer, said, like any other probation officer, he visits all the participants, going to group homes, homeless shelters, wherever they are.
Unlike other probation officers, he makes sure their prescriptions are filled, even checking pill bottles. He makes sure they are getting to classes. He makes sure they have bus passes.
"I'm a believer," said the 17-year veteran.
The new court, launched in 2007, is one of about 20 in the state and more than 100 nationwide since the first in 1998 in Florida.
In five years, Santa Clara County's Mental Health Court graduated 900 people, saved $10 million in county costs, another $13 million in jail and prison costs. More than 700 of the graduates there reunited with families.
A bizarre shooting on Sept. 22 in downtown Sacramento underscored concern over the mentally ill drifting among us.
Audrey Jackson, 47, is accused of pulling out a handgun and shooting a man sitting among a late afternoon crowd at a bus stop. The wounded man, Frank Perez, 54, a state worker, had to undergo several surgeries from bullet wounds in his abdomen.
Police said Jackson was panhandling and shot Perez after he declined to give her money.
Though much of Jackson's history is not public yet, a public defender who was appointed to represent Jackson, who has no known address, agreed that treatment by professionals is the answer.
"Ms. Jackson is not unlike thousands of people arrested in Sacramento County each who year who may commit crimes – not by a rational or thoughtful decision on their parts – but as a result of suffering from a mental condition from which they have no choice," said Diane Howard.
On the wall of his workplace, Terrell Baker, 44, has nailed up the plaque he got after graduating from Mental Health Court in January.
An Army veteran, he was diverted to Mental Health Court after he was caught stealing a steak from a grocery store. He is schizophrenic and bipolar.
Now he works at Turning Point Community Programs, a mental health nonprofit group. He has a desk and a home.
He is clear where he would be now without Mental Health Court: "I'd probably be in jail."
Call The Bee's M.S. Enkoji, (916) 321-1106.
