April 22, 2025 • 28 mins
Brian Shrader, a criminal defense attorney with experience as both prosecutor and defender, exposes how the justice system profoundly fails people with autism and mental health conditions.
• Autism often leads to escalation during police encounters rather than directly causing criminal behavior
• Mental health training is virtually non-existent for lawyers, judges and prosecutors
• The system lacks procedures and resources for addressing mental health issues beyond addiction
• Mental health diversion programs have extensive waitlists while jails provide no treatment
• First responders frequently misinterpret autism behaviors as drug-related symptoms
• Public defenders and prosecutors are overwhelmed with caseloads, making individual attention impossible
• Addressing these issues requires federal and state-level policy changes
• Many legal professionals care but lack the tools and training to help effectively
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to why Not Me ?
The World Podcast, hosted byTony Mantor, broadcasting from
Music City, usa, nashville,tennessee.
Join us as our guests tell ustheir stories.
Some will make you laugh, somewill make you cry.
Tell us their stories.
Some will make you laugh, somewill make you cry.
(00:26):
Real life people who willinspire and show that you are
not alone in this world.
Hopefully, you gain moreawareness, acceptance and a
better understanding for autismaround the world.
Hi, I'm Tony Mantor.
(00:53):
Welcome to why Not Me?
The World Humanity OverHandcuffs the Silent Crisis
special event.
We are joined today by BrianSchrader, a seasoned criminal
lawyer with a distinguishedcareer in the legal system.
Initially, he served asprosecutor since 2008 and
briefly participated in theMental Health Diversion Program.
(01:13):
Subsequently, he transitionedto criminal defense after
leaving the state attorney'soffice.
We are fortunate to have himshare his vast expertise on our
show.
Thanks for coming on.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Yeah, any opportunity to help out.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Thanks so much.
Can you give us a briefintroduction to what you do?
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Sure, I've been doing criminal law since 2008.
Started out as a prosecutor,including a short stint in the
mental health diversion programthat everyone had to go through
as kind of part of the promotionchain, and then left the state
attorney's office to do criminaldefense work and a few other
areas of law.
As part of criminal defensework, it's inevitable that we're
going to encounter a lot ofdifferent mental health issues.
(01:53):
Substantial amount are relatedto drug addiction either mental
health issues caused by drugaddiction or mental health
issues that lead to drugaddiction.
But we also see people issuesthat lead to drug addiction.
But we also see people and Ican't sit here and say that it's
always been referred to by itsname is autism or any other type
of neurodivergent or what somepeople refer to as
(02:14):
neurodivergent situations.
It's not always called by itsname, but what we see and where
I think I've seen autism, it'sspecifically in the criminal
justice system.
The most is mostly with dealingwith escalating and
de-escalating situation.
I have not seen a lot ofsituations where I can say my
autism caused me to commit atheft.
(02:35):
That's not necessarily somethingwe're gonna see, but what we
will see is someone who commitsa theft is then confronted by
law enforcement, taken into asmall room, there's four or five
people trying to interrogatethem and the situation will
escalate into something else.
Or law enforcement will go toarrest someone, grab a hold of
(02:56):
them, try and manipulate theirbody, and we see them resist,
tense up, start to have a verystrong emotional them resist,
tense up, start to have a verystrong emotional, physical
reaction to it and we see thosethings certainly escalate the
situation.
Instead of someone who perhapswas not on the autism spectrum,
who was caught doing somethingas basic as a petty theft from
Walmart, they may be able totalk their way out of it a
(03:18):
little better.
They may be able to de-escalatethe situation a little more,
comprehend if law enforcementgive them the option of a
pre-arrest diversion situation,and so that's where we've seen
autism actually called by itsname in the situation.
If we want to talk about themental health situation, the
criminal justice systemgenerally, I don't think we have
(03:40):
enough time in the day or theweek or the month to really dive
into it.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Yeah, I can understand that for sure.
Is the criminal justice systemreally set up to handle mental
health or autism?
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Generally, I think I'd be negligent in talking to
anyone in a public forum withoutmentioning our criminal justice
system is not equipped to dealwith mental health situations.
It is not equipped becauselawyers are not trained on this
from the start, we are nottrained on it throughout our
careers and we are certainly notseeing training on these
(04:24):
specific things mandated for thepeople who maybe need to know
the most, which are prosecutorsand judges and, to a certain
extent in the federal system,the probation officers who are
preparing pre-sentenceinvestigation reports.
There's almost not even arecognition of these things.
We've seen a lot of progress orattempts at progress in dealing
with substance abuse problemsin and of themselves and we'll
(04:44):
see some carry over into dualdiagnosis situations.
But when I do encountersomething that is purely a
mental health problem or amental health situation first,
where perhaps drugs wereexacerbating the issue or drugs
were just secondary result ofthe underlying mental health
issue or the situation that themental health issue would put
(05:05):
someone in, there is almost noresources and no procedure to
really handle that mental healthsituation, aside from
challenges to competency, whichare not always going to be
helpful, especially in an autismspectrum situation, or just
challenges to overall capacityto even commit a crime, kind of
(05:25):
not guilty by reason of insanitya layman's term that also a lot
of people don't fit into and sowe're often left with no
options or no good options,especially in situations where
there's no insurance.
That's a really long, ramblinganswer to a very basic question.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Not a problem at all.
Now you have been on both sides, as a prosecutor and as a
defender.
What do you see?
The differences, the way theyapproach it as a prosecutor and
as a defender.
How can we help get moreunderstanding for the
prosecutors, the judges, getthem to understand that people
(06:03):
with autism or mental healthissues are not just sitting down
and planning out how to commita crime.
They are doing things that theyjust don't understand
themselves, which puts them in asituation where they're faced
with the legal system.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Education has to be the key and this is perhaps for
our entire society.
We still deal with a lot ofstigma on mental health issues.
We still have a lot ofmisunderstanding.
There's still a lot of in thecriminal justice system,
especially on the prosecutorside of belief that people are
faking it or they're using it asan excuse.
When we have really gooddoctors and we are very
(06:46):
fortunate I work with sometremendous mental health doctors
who can explain it and talk tothe judges about it it still is
coming from the standpoint of acriminal defense attorney doing
their job, so sometimes I thinkit gets written off.
We have these tremendouspresentations.
We can discuss these scientificlevel issues of diagnosis and
(07:08):
understanding what the differentkind of thresholds for
behaviors and reactions andthresholds for understanding and
comprehending presented andlaid out before the court, and
yet there's not enoughwillingness to listen and
there's not enough willingnessto put the effort into
understanding amongst a lot ofmy colleagues.
I have to be careful not to talkabout examples.
(07:29):
Trial attorneys love to tellwar stories and I really want to
dive into this one casespecifically that I'm actually
working on right now.
That has been extremelyfrustrating, but suffice to say
that when we see mental healthsituations come in that are
purely mental health situations.
We're really screaming into theabyss trying to get someone to
(07:49):
pay attention, and we're verylucky when we get people.
For someone like me, I'm verylucky there are people who work
at the state attorney's officestill that I know on a personal
level that I can come to and sayI'm not just being defense
attorney here, this is real.
This is something that isunique and needs to be looked at
.
(08:10):
Even then, sometimes it'sdifficult because we don't have
a path.
Our mental health diversionprogram in Hillsborough County,
florida, has a six-month waitlist and the answer to the
question for people who'vecommitted crimes and then
sometimes when they're having atrue mental health break,
there'll be crime after crime.
(08:31):
They might get arrested forsomething, manage to get out,
they're going to pick upsomething else right away.
Now their bond gets revoked andthe answer is they just sit in
jail for six months waiting tosee if they get into the
diversion program and the jailgives no treatment.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Am I coming close?
Yeah, absolutely.
I think you hit it spot on.
I've talked with so many peopleregarding this subject matter.
I've talked with attorneys suchas yourself.
I've talked with judges,psychotherapists, CIT trainers.
They all have similar thoughts,such as yourself.
Now I've seen where mentalhealth issues are 1% of the
(09:07):
population.
The autistic community is 1% ofthe population.
The autistic community is 1% ofthe population.
They are a small minority, yettheir numbers are staggering
with the legal system.
Because of that, you wouldthink they would put their heads
together.
Come up with a plan that willhelp these people.
Come up with a plan that willhelp these people.
(09:28):
There's a retired judge inMiami that's created a 218,000
square foot facility because hesees the need.
How do we get other people,other judges, to join this
initiative where it can help allthese people around the country
?
Speaker 2 (09:46):
And that's the key.
You've got to play on the idea,and I don't want to be too
cynical and I don't want to getin trouble with any of my judge
friends.
They want to do the leastamount of work necessary to get
through their dockets, and so dothe prosecutors.
They're not paid by the case,they're not paid by the hour,
and so if you can convince themthat this is a way to get the
files off their desk for good,that's going to be one of the
(10:09):
first thing that's going totrigger and it's a very cynical
view.
I think a lot of the peoplethat I work across from or up on
the bench are good-heartedpeople who, if they got a chance
to really help someone, wouldwant to do it because they're
good people.
But from a more cynicalstandpoint, if we can just show
the system in general that thisis a way to get people out of it
, to stop being a burden I usethe air quotes on that because
(10:31):
it's not how I feel about it,but that's how a lot of people
would see it If we can get themto see that, then maybe it's
worth investing in, and we'veseen it in the drug treatment.
We've seen some progress.
It is not where it needs to be.
We still over-incarcerate fordrug abuse issues.
We still just approach thewhole system wrong.
But if someone gets arrested onmultiple drug charges I can get
(10:52):
them into a rehabilitationfacility quick.
I can facilitate that and thecourts are ready for it.
There are forms with everythingalmost filled out for you to
get a lot of that done Comes tomental health.
We're starting from scratch inevery single case.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
I recently spoke with a former police officer.
He trains other police officersaround the country about autism
and how to interact with them.
On a call he gave me an examplethat he uses in his class.
It shows how a qualified andhighly trained police officer
can misinterpret the actions ofsomeone that may be autistic.
(11:29):
The officer did everything bythe book and everything he did
would have been correct in mostevery situation, except for that
one.
He had not had any training ofautistic people.
This autistic person was juststemming and he took it as a
drug issue.
Was just stemming and he tookit as a drug issue.
(11:53):
Everything the autistic personwas doing mimicked what a person
on drugs would have been doing.
The person did tell the policeofficer that he was stemming.
Unfortunately, the officer justdid not understand.
He treated it like a drug issue, handcuffed the man.
As luck would have it, themother was close by, explained
(12:13):
everything and it worked out allright.
Now, if the mother had not beenthere, this would have turned
into a legal situation.
I realize that there needs to bemore training on the first
responders, which a lot ofpeople are doing and a lot of
the first responders are gettingnow.
My opinion is the ADA, the DAjudges.
(12:35):
Anyone involved in the legalsystem has to get this kind of
training.
I realize there's not anyongoing training that the legal
system has to have yet.
This is so crucial to gettingthe understanding of autism and
mental health issues out thereso that the legal system can
(12:55):
better serve those that need it.
How do we get that done?
Speaker 2 (13:01):
You're going to have to start with the Florida Bar.
The Florida Supreme Courtstarted mandating mental health
training for prosecutors.
When I was a prosecutor we tookall the really cool classes
that we thought were excitingabout murders and gang
prosecution and blood and gutstuff.
We weren't interested in themental health stuff and, like I
said, I spent a short time inthe mental health diversion
(13:22):
program because it was just partof the promotion chain is you
had to serve your time in therebefore you could go to the next
step.
It wasn't a destination, itwasn't anything anyone was
deciding to focus on.
But it extends not just betweenkind of the people who we see
maybe at the top of the pyramidthe judges, the prosecutors, law
enforcement but even the peoplewho work under them.
For example, a mental healthclient goes to the jail.
(13:44):
They put him on opioidwithdrawal therapy.
The guy had never done a singleopioid but he was presenting
with a lot of the same symptomsas someone who was on fentanyl
or some strong opioid andthey're telling him he's going
to take all this medication andgo through opioid withdrawal.
It was a bipolar situation.
Aren't there nurses and doctorsthere doing these evaluations
(14:06):
and shouldn't they be trained torecognize this right away?
And when they see it, shouldn'tthey be trained to recognize
this right away?
And when they see it, shouldn'tthey have an obligation to say
hey look, red flag, red flag.
This is a situation that needsto be treated differently and
especially shouldn't be treatedagain in ways that escalate.
Locking him in some small cellalone, tripping him down naked
(14:31):
into a paper jumpsuit All ofthese hands-on with people can
be very overstimulating, veryscary, and it can really trigger
things to get much worse.
We've got to train everybody onthat and there has to be
accountability and unfortunatelyaccountability in the criminal
justice system for lawenforcement tends to only come
after someone dies.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Yeah, which is sad.
What you just brought upreminds me of a conversation I
just recently had with a retiredjudge.
He was sent to a prison.
He was 17 years old at the time.
The inmate was being treatedfor schizophrenia and given
multiple drugs.
As it turned out, he wasn'tschizophrenic at all, he was
(15:13):
autistic.
By seeing that, he rememberedit when he became a judge.
He tried to use empathy in theway that he treated the people
that came in front of him.
He found by putting them inplaces they could get treatment.
They didn't show up a secondtime, which saved taxpayers
millions of dollars over aperiod of time.
(15:35):
So if one judge in one part ofthe country can figure this out,
why can't we get other judgesacross the country collectively
together so that it could savetaxpayers millions and millions
of dollars plus help the peoplethat actually need the help?
Speaker 2 (15:51):
That's the answer is we've got to show them that the
system will be saved, becauseclearly saving an individual is
not enough to motivate anybody.
Otherwise this would have beendone by now.
But we still have firstresponders who are not properly
trained and we don't have peopleto accompany them to situations
who are, if that was apossibility.
(16:12):
We don't have prosecutors whoare trained to recognize it and
you take a step back there.
We don't have prosecutors withthe resources to even try and
evaluate it if they wanted to.
I think at one point I had athousand files when I was a
prosecutor assigned to me and wewere turning these things like
every 90 days.
I wasn't reading the policereports, I wasn't digging into
each file in any detail.
I was looking at the generalallegations, looking at their
(16:35):
criminal history, making a pleaoffer and trusting that the
defense we're going to do it.
But a lot of these individualsare going to end up with public
defenders who also are taxed tothe maximum, who have very
little resources and have toomany files assigned to them.
And a lot of public defendersare tremendous attorneys and
tremendous people who really aretrying to do the best they can,
(16:57):
but they're given an impossibletask and so, absent someone at
the public defender's officebeing willing to allocate
resources that they may not evenhave, it's not going to get
flagged there.
We have to have a system, numberone, to identify the issues
(17:23):
consideration of how significantthe problem is, because we
don't know.
We don't know what's out there,especially in some of the
homeless population, people whoaren't getting medical treatment
regularly.
They're not being diagnosed byanyone ever in a lifetime and so
that's not getting reported.
We talk about 1% or these lowpercentages.
I think a much higher percent.
In reality.
I think we have a lot of peoplewho have successful careers, or
seen as having successfulcareers or living normal lives,
(17:45):
who suffer from some form ofdivergence or mental health
issues, and that can span allthe different types of diagnoses
and levels of it, whether it'sanxiety and depression, which
can be rippling for some people,all the way through
schizophrenia and totalpsychosis and things like that.
(18:05):
And so until we can reallyidentify this and we have
resources in place to be able toreally track it and say this is
a much more significant portionof our population that's being
underserved and it's beingmistreated, and then the step
two would be then provide theresources for it.
Maybe step one we're so farfrom achieving, so unattainable
(18:28):
under our current set of valuesand resources as a society that
we can't even talk about steptwo yet.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
What's really sad.
I've spoken with many peoplethe thing that they say we need
to get it changed on the statelevel.
Then I'll talk with others.
They say we need to get itchanged on the state level.
Then I'll talk with others.
They say we need to get itchanged on the federal level,
because then the federal levelwill dictate what the state
level actually does.
However, that's not always thecase.
Getting anything changed ateither level is like climbing
(18:58):
Mount Everest.
I spoke with a legislator onthe national level.
If it wasn't for his name andconnections that he had, which
allowed him to get his bill onanother bill that was already
happening, if not for that, itwouldn't have happened.
He worked very hard to getchange.
So we need more like him thatwill try to get some things
(19:22):
going for everyone's benefit.
So how do we get past this?
Because it seems like thepaperwork is just getting
overloaded while people arestill getting thrown in the
system that just don't belongthere.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
It is a system that's going to have to fix itself
while running at full steam.
There's not going to be anability to stop the need.
We're going to have to justinterject ourselves into things
as they're happening and try andfix it on the fly.
At a state level, you know,might have more of a chance of
getting someone to listen thanat a federal level, at least
(19:56):
initially, it'd be great to havefederal resources allocated,
although I won't get into thecurrent political and crises we
may be facing with getting anyof that type of assistance or
strange things that are going on.
But we have to do something andI know there's a lot of other
criminal defense attorneys whowould agree with all this.
(20:17):
I wouldn't hesitate to call upmy colleagues and say don't you
agree?
And they would all say, yeah,we agree, but we don't know what
to do.
We don't have an answer to howto fix it, and a lot of that is
because we're looking.
We're not looking a year downthe road or five years down the
road.
We're looking six weeks downthe road when I have the hearing
, and then that hearing comesand goes and unfortunately that
(20:41):
file gets closed out.
We move on to the next thingand we start all over and we may
have some retainedinstitutionalized knowledge that
I'm happy to share.
Anything I have with anybodyelse and I find most of my
colleagues are the same way butit may need to come from public
defenders the elected publicdefenders or appointed public
defenders, depending on thejurisdiction to be able to talk
(21:03):
about things loud enough andwith enough kind of background
and statistics that they keepthemselves.
So that might be a great placeto start.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
I've always been a believer, a firm believer, that
if you want to get somethingdone, you work hard enough.
It can get done With that said.
When you get into legislation,you work hard enough, it can get
done With that said.
When you get into legislation,you get into the political side
of things and then all theparameters of it.
You just brought it up.
Everyone's busy doing their ownthing.
They're focusing on one case ata time.
(21:35):
When that's done, they move onto the next one.
There has to be a way wheresomeone can get across to these
people, make them realize notonly are they saving millions of
dollars, but they're savingthemselves time and they're
helping people along the way.
I hate to say that it seemshopeless, but boy, it almost
(21:58):
seems like you're a novicemountain climber looking at
Mount Everest as your firstmountain to climb.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
Yeah, change is hard.
Change is real hard and peoplewill resist change every step,
especially in the system wherethere's a lot of motivation for,
like I said, for people just toget things off their desk and
move on, to add an extra step inthere or ask someone to spend
some time putting into place anew system, is tough.
Funding it is always going tobe a problem and these are
(22:26):
programs that have to begovernment funded.
There's not going to be aprivate donor step up and who
are going through the systems,sometimes by the very nature of
what they're going through, arenot going to have the personal
financial resources to be ableto fund their own way.
That's just a reality for a lotof people.
And I know I mentioned beforeand I'll bring it up, our
homeless population is full ofmental health problems probably
(22:51):
could be treated and these youknow a lot of the individuals
who are just languishing andreally struggling on so many
fronts, not just from a povertyfront but from the mental health
front, and physical, untreatedphysical ailments.
A lot of these people are rightin our face every day.
We're gonna have to provide theresources for them, but we
(23:12):
can't get them to get a job.
Take some responsibility foryourselves.
We can't do that until we canget their mindset right, until
we help get them set up tosucceed.
Otherwise we're just pickingthem up, dusting them off.
Maybe we give them some newclothes, some toiletries, a
place to stay for a few nightsand they're going to be right
(23:33):
back out into the struggle again.
They don't have those toolsmentally to put together
everything they need and a lotof them are very ill.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Yeah, there's a certain amount of the population
that will never ever get better.
Unfortunately, they seem to bea lost cause.
You just mentioned the homeless.
They're not a lost cause.
They don't have the knowledge.
They don't have the money, theyjust lost their direction.
Don't have the knowledge, theydon't have the money, they just
lost their direction.
They have the stress.
Some of them are autistic, havesensory overload.
(24:06):
It just throws them into aworld where they just don't know
what to do.
Then they have those that pushback, telling them they can't do
it, which takes away their hopein trying to do it.
Ultimately, we have to getacross to the legislators, both
state and national, that this issomething that absolutely has
(24:29):
to be changed to make thingsbetter for everyone.
How do we do this?
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Tragedy.
Sometimes we'll spurn the mediato do something.
It's a terrible thing to thinkis what it's going to take.
But we saw some reform afterthings like the death of George
Floyd and we can see somechanges in policing there.
We're also dealing with acertain level of disparity,
because when the wealthy, thepowerful class has someone in
(24:57):
their family with a mentalhealth problem, it gets treated,
it gets dealt with.
This shouldn't be a problem intheir eyes.
With a mental health problem,it gets treated, it gets dealt
with.
This shouldn't be a problem intheir eyes.
You just go do the thing and aslong as you do the things,
everything's going to be okay.
And why isn't everyone justdoing the things?
Obviously now we can go downthe rabbit hole of our
healthcare system in thiscountry, spend a few hours on
that.
But it just makes sense to mewhen we're looking at a portion
(25:21):
of our population that thecynical and, I think,
ill-informed portions of societylook at and say it's a burden,
or those people are dangerous orthose are people that are prone
for criminal activity.
And we know, because commonsense tells us in addition to
our own experiences, that a lotof that portion of the
population has untreated mentalhealth.
(25:42):
Why not provide a little bit ofthose resources so we don't
have to provide the otherresources?
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Absolutely so.
In closing, what would you liketo tell the listeners that you
think is important that theyhear about what we've been
talking about and, of course,what you're doing?
Speaker 2 (25:57):
There are people in the system who do care and who
do want to learn and who do wantto take whatever we learn and
share it with our colleagues sothat we can make change.
But we're not equipped for it,naturally, as part of our
professional progression and thepath that most of us take to
(26:21):
get to these positions.
So we will miss some, we willswing at some pitches and
totally miss and maybe evenstrike out on some issues.
But there are those of us whoreally do care and who really do
want to see change and who wantto see these issues addressed
properly.
We just need help from peoplein the medical fields informing
(26:44):
us and coming forward andproviding us with scholarly
articles and information that wecan use, and we need help from
our colleagues on the lawenforcement side and the
judiciary to listen and have anopen mind for this.
But we are here.
We do want to help.
There are a lot of us.
We talk about it.
It really is a significantissue that, for however long our
(27:06):
criminal justice system isgoing to go on and has gone on,
it's going to need to beaddressed.
Shocking, it hasn't yet.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Yeah, so true.
Well, this has been a greatconversation, a lot of great
information.
I appreciate you coming on.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Tony, it was great to get the invitation.
It's been my pleasure.
Thanks again, thanks for takingthe time out of your busy
schedule to listen to our showtoday.
We hope that you enjoyed it asmuch as we enjoyed bringing it
to you.
If you know anyone that wouldlike to tell us their story,
send them to tonymantorcomcontact then they can give us
(27:51):
their information so one daythey may be a guest on our show.
One more thing we ask telleveryone everywhere about why
Not Me, the world, theconversations we're having and
the inspiration our guests giveto everyone everywhere that you
are not alone in this world.
Welcome to why Not Me ?
The World Podcast, hosted byTony Mantor, broadcasting from
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Join us as our guests tell ustheir stories.
Some will make you laugh, somewill make you cry.
Tell us their stories.
Some will make you laugh, somewill make you cry.
(00:26):
Real life people who willinspire and show that you are
not alone in this world.
Hopefully, you gain moreawareness, acceptance and a
better understanding for autismaround the world.
Hi, I'm Tony Mantor.
(00:53):
Welcome to why Not Me?
The World Humanity OverHandcuffs the Silent Crisis
special event.
We are joined today by BrianSchrader, a seasoned criminal
lawyer with a distinguishedcareer in the legal system.
Initially, he served asprosecutor since 2008 and
briefly participated in theMental Health Diversion Program.
(01:13):
Subsequently, he transitionedto criminal defense after
leaving the state attorney'soffice.
We are fortunate to have himshare his vast expertise on our
show.
Thanks for coming on.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Yeah, any opportunity to help out.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Thanks so much.
Can you give us a briefintroduction to what you do?
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Sure, I've been doing criminal law since 2008.
Started out as a prosecutor,including a short stint in the
mental health diversion programthat everyone had to go through
as kind of part of the promotionchain, and then left the state
attorney's office to do criminaldefense work and a few other
areas of law.
As part of criminal defensework, it's inevitable that we're
going to encounter a lot ofdifferent mental health issues.
(01:53):
Substantial amount are relatedto drug addiction either mental
health issues caused by drugaddiction or mental health
issues that lead to drugaddiction.
But we also see people issuesthat lead to drug addiction.
But we also see people and Ican't sit here and say that it's
always been referred to by itsname is autism or any other type
of neurodivergent or what somepeople refer to as
(02:14):
neurodivergent situations.
It's not always called by itsname, but what we see and where
I think I've seen autism, it'sspecifically in the criminal
justice system.
The most is mostly with dealingwith escalating and
de-escalating situation.
I have not seen a lot ofsituations where I can say my
autism caused me to commit atheft.
(02:35):
That's not necessarily somethingwe're gonna see, but what we
will see is someone who commitsa theft is then confronted by
law enforcement, taken into asmall room, there's four or five
people trying to interrogatethem and the situation will
escalate into something else.
Or law enforcement will go toarrest someone, grab a hold of
(02:56):
them, try and manipulate theirbody, and we see them resist,
tense up, start to have a verystrong emotional them resist,
tense up, start to have a verystrong emotional, physical
reaction to it and we see thosethings certainly escalate the
situation.
Instead of someone who perhapswas not on the autism spectrum,
who was caught doing somethingas basic as a petty theft from
Walmart, they may be able totalk their way out of it a
(03:18):
little better.
They may be able to de-escalatethe situation a little more,
comprehend if law enforcementgive them the option of a
pre-arrest diversion situation,and so that's where we've seen
autism actually called by itsname in the situation.
If we want to talk about themental health situation, the
criminal justice systemgenerally, I don't think we have
(03:40):
enough time in the day or theweek or the month to really dive
into it.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Yeah, I can understand that for sure.
Is the criminal justice systemreally set up to handle mental
health or autism?
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Generally, I think I'd be negligent in talking to
anyone in a public forum withoutmentioning our criminal justice
system is not equipped to dealwith mental health situations.
It is not equipped becauselawyers are not trained on this
from the start, we are nottrained on it throughout our
careers and we are certainly notseeing training on these
(04:24):
specific things mandated for thepeople who maybe need to know
the most, which are prosecutorsand judges and, to a certain
extent in the federal system,the probation officers who are
preparing pre-sentenceinvestigation reports.
There's almost not even arecognition of these things.
We've seen a lot of progress orattempts at progress in dealing
with substance abuse problemsin and of themselves and we'll
(04:44):
see some carry over into dualdiagnosis situations.
But when I do encountersomething that is purely a
mental health problem or amental health situation first,
where perhaps drugs wereexacerbating the issue or drugs
were just secondary result ofthe underlying mental health
issue or the situation that themental health issue would put
(05:05):
someone in, there is almost noresources and no procedure to
really handle that mental healthsituation, aside from
challenges to competency, whichare not always going to be
helpful, especially in an autismspectrum situation, or just
challenges to overall capacityto even commit a crime, kind of
(05:25):
not guilty by reason of insanitya layman's term that also a lot
of people don't fit into and sowe're often left with no
options or no good options,especially in situations where
there's no insurance.
That's a really long, ramblinganswer to a very basic question.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Not a problem at all.
Now you have been on both sides, as a prosecutor and as a
defender.
What do you see?
The differences, the way theyapproach it as a prosecutor and
as a defender.
How can we help get moreunderstanding for the
prosecutors, the judges, getthem to understand that people
(06:03):
with autism or mental healthissues are not just sitting down
and planning out how to commita crime.
They are doing things that theyjust don't understand
themselves, which puts them in asituation where they're faced
with the legal system.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Education has to be the key and this is perhaps for
our entire society.
We still deal with a lot ofstigma on mental health issues.
We still have a lot ofmisunderstanding.
There's still a lot of in thecriminal justice system,
especially on the prosecutorside of belief that people are
faking it or they're using it asan excuse.
When we have really gooddoctors and we are very
(06:46):
fortunate I work with sometremendous mental health doctors
who can explain it and talk tothe judges about it it still is
coming from the standpoint of acriminal defense attorney doing
their job, so sometimes I thinkit gets written off.
We have these tremendouspresentations.
We can discuss these scientificlevel issues of diagnosis and
(07:08):
understanding what the differentkind of thresholds for
behaviors and reactions andthresholds for understanding and
comprehending presented andlaid out before the court, and
yet there's not enoughwillingness to listen and
there's not enough willingnessto put the effort into
understanding amongst a lot ofmy colleagues.
I have to be careful not to talkabout examples.
(07:29):
Trial attorneys love to tellwar stories and I really want to
dive into this one casespecifically that I'm actually
working on right now.
That has been extremelyfrustrating, but suffice to say
that when we see mental healthsituations come in that are
purely mental health situations.
We're really screaming into theabyss trying to get someone to
(07:49):
pay attention, and we're verylucky when we get people.
For someone like me, I'm verylucky there are people who work
at the state attorney's officestill that I know on a personal
level that I can come to and sayI'm not just being defense
attorney here, this is real.
This is something that isunique and needs to be looked at
.
(08:10):
Even then, sometimes it'sdifficult because we don't have
a path.
Our mental health diversionprogram in Hillsborough County,
florida, has a six-month waitlist and the answer to the
question for people who'vecommitted crimes and then
sometimes when they're having atrue mental health break,
there'll be crime after crime.
(08:31):
They might get arrested forsomething, manage to get out,
they're going to pick upsomething else right away.
Now their bond gets revoked andthe answer is they just sit in
jail for six months waiting tosee if they get into the
diversion program and the jailgives no treatment.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Am I coming close?
Yeah, absolutely.
I think you hit it spot on.
I've talked with so many peopleregarding this subject matter.
I've talked with attorneys suchas yourself.
I've talked with judges,psychotherapists, CIT trainers.
They all have similar thoughts,such as yourself.
Now I've seen where mentalhealth issues are 1% of the
(09:07):
population.
The autistic community is 1% ofthe population.
The autistic community is 1% ofthe population.
They are a small minority, yettheir numbers are staggering
with the legal system.
Because of that, you wouldthink they would put their heads
together.
Come up with a plan that willhelp these people.
Come up with a plan that willhelp these people.
(09:28):
There's a retired judge inMiami that's created a 218,000
square foot facility because hesees the need.
How do we get other people,other judges, to join this
initiative where it can help allthese people around the country
?
Speaker 2 (09:46):
And that's the key.
You've got to play on the idea,and I don't want to be too
cynical and I don't want to getin trouble with any of my judge
friends.
They want to do the leastamount of work necessary to get
through their dockets, and so dothe prosecutors.
They're not paid by the case,they're not paid by the hour,
and so if you can convince themthat this is a way to get the
files off their desk for good,that's going to be one of the
(10:09):
first thing that's going totrigger and it's a very cynical
view.
I think a lot of the peoplethat I work across from or up on
the bench are good-heartedpeople who, if they got a chance
to really help someone, wouldwant to do it because they're
good people.
But from a more cynicalstandpoint, if we can just show
the system in general that thisis a way to get people out of it
, to stop being a burden I usethe air quotes on that because
(10:31):
it's not how I feel about it,but that's how a lot of people
would see it If we can get themto see that, then maybe it's
worth investing in, and we'veseen it in the drug treatment.
We've seen some progress.
It is not where it needs to be.
We still over-incarcerate fordrug abuse issues.
We still just approach thewhole system wrong.
But if someone gets arrested onmultiple drug charges I can get
(10:52):
them into a rehabilitationfacility quick.
I can facilitate that and thecourts are ready for it.
There are forms with everythingalmost filled out for you to
get a lot of that done Comes tomental health.
We're starting from scratch inevery single case.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
I recently spoke with a former police officer.
He trains other police officersaround the country about autism
and how to interact with them.
On a call he gave me an examplethat he uses in his class.
It shows how a qualified andhighly trained police officer
can misinterpret the actions ofsomeone that may be autistic.
(11:29):
The officer did everything bythe book and everything he did
would have been correct in mostevery situation, except for that
one.
He had not had any training ofautistic people.
This autistic person was juststemming and he took it as a
drug issue.
Was just stemming and he tookit as a drug issue.
(11:53):
Everything the autistic personwas doing mimicked what a person
on drugs would have been doing.
The person did tell the policeofficer that he was stemming.
Unfortunately, the officer justdid not understand.
He treated it like a drug issue, handcuffed the man.
As luck would have it, themother was close by, explained
(12:13):
everything and it worked out allright.
Now, if the mother had not beenthere, this would have turned
into a legal situation.
I realize that there needs to bemore training on the first
responders, which a lot ofpeople are doing and a lot of
the first responders are gettingnow.
My opinion is the ADA, the DAjudges.
(12:35):
Anyone involved in the legalsystem has to get this kind of
training.
I realize there's not anyongoing training that the legal
system has to have yet.
This is so crucial to gettingthe understanding of autism and
mental health issues out thereso that the legal system can
(12:55):
better serve those that need it.
How do we get that done?
Speaker 2 (13:01):
You're going to have to start with the Florida Bar.
The Florida Supreme Courtstarted mandating mental health
training for prosecutors.
When I was a prosecutor we tookall the really cool classes
that we thought were excitingabout murders and gang
prosecution and blood and gutstuff.
We weren't interested in themental health stuff and, like I
said, I spent a short time inthe mental health diversion
(13:22):
program because it was just partof the promotion chain is you
had to serve your time in therebefore you could go to the next
step.
It wasn't a destination, itwasn't anything anyone was
deciding to focus on.
But it extends not just betweenkind of the people who we see
maybe at the top of the pyramidthe judges, the prosecutors, law
enforcement but even the peoplewho work under them.
For example, a mental healthclient goes to the jail.
(13:44):
They put him on opioidwithdrawal therapy.
The guy had never done a singleopioid but he was presenting
with a lot of the same symptomsas someone who was on fentanyl
or some strong opioid andthey're telling him he's going
to take all this medication andgo through opioid withdrawal.
It was a bipolar situation.
Aren't there nurses and doctorsthere doing these evaluations
(14:06):
and shouldn't they be trained torecognize this right away?
And when they see it, shouldn'tthey be trained to recognize
this right away?
And when they see it, shouldn'tthey have an obligation to say
hey look, red flag, red flag.
This is a situation that needsto be treated differently and
especially shouldn't be treatedagain in ways that escalate.
Locking him in some small cellalone, tripping him down naked
(14:31):
into a paper jumpsuit All ofthese hands-on with people can
be very overstimulating, veryscary, and it can really trigger
things to get much worse.
We've got to train everybody onthat and there has to be
accountability and unfortunatelyaccountability in the criminal
justice system for lawenforcement tends to only come
after someone dies.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Yeah, which is sad.
What you just brought upreminds me of a conversation I
just recently had with a retiredjudge.
He was sent to a prison.
He was 17 years old at the time.
The inmate was being treatedfor schizophrenia and given
multiple drugs.
As it turned out, he wasn'tschizophrenic at all, he was
(15:13):
autistic.
By seeing that, he rememberedit when he became a judge.
He tried to use empathy in theway that he treated the people
that came in front of him.
He found by putting them inplaces they could get treatment.
They didn't show up a secondtime, which saved taxpayers
millions of dollars over aperiod of time.
(15:35):
So if one judge in one part ofthe country can figure this out,
why can't we get other judgesacross the country collectively
together so that it could savetaxpayers millions and millions
of dollars plus help the peoplethat actually need the help?
Speaker 2 (15:51):
That's the answer is we've got to show them that the
system will be saved, becauseclearly saving an individual is
not enough to motivate anybody.
Otherwise this would have beendone by now.
But we still have firstresponders who are not properly
trained and we don't have peopleto accompany them to situations
who are, if that was apossibility.
(16:12):
We don't have prosecutors whoare trained to recognize it and
you take a step back there.
We don't have prosecutors withthe resources to even try and
evaluate it if they wanted to.
I think at one point I had athousand files when I was a
prosecutor assigned to me and wewere turning these things like
every 90 days.
I wasn't reading the policereports, I wasn't digging into
each file in any detail.
I was looking at the generalallegations, looking at their
(16:35):
criminal history, making a pleaoffer and trusting that the
defense we're going to do it.
But a lot of these individualsare going to end up with public
defenders who also are taxed tothe maximum, who have very
little resources and have toomany files assigned to them.
And a lot of public defendersare tremendous attorneys and
tremendous people who really aretrying to do the best they can,
(16:57):
but they're given an impossibletask and so, absent someone at
the public defender's officebeing willing to allocate
resources that they may not evenhave, it's not going to get
flagged there.
We have to have a system, numberone, to identify the issues
(17:23):
consideration of how significantthe problem is, because we
don't know.
We don't know what's out there,especially in some of the
homeless population, people whoaren't getting medical treatment
regularly.
They're not being diagnosed byanyone ever in a lifetime and so
that's not getting reported.
We talk about 1% or these lowpercentages.
I think a much higher percent.
In reality.
I think we have a lot of peoplewho have successful careers, or
seen as having successfulcareers or living normal lives,
(17:45):
who suffer from some form ofdivergence or mental health
issues, and that can span allthe different types of diagnoses
and levels of it, whether it'sanxiety and depression, which
can be rippling for some people,all the way through
schizophrenia and totalpsychosis and things like that.
(18:05):
And so until we can reallyidentify this and we have
resources in place to be able toreally track it and say this is
a much more significant portionof our population that's being
underserved and it's beingmistreated, and then the step
two would be then provide theresources for it.
Maybe step one we're so farfrom achieving, so unattainable
(18:28):
under our current set of valuesand resources as a society that
we can't even talk about steptwo yet.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
What's really sad.
I've spoken with many peoplethe thing that they say we need
to get it changed on the statelevel.
Then I'll talk with others.
They say we need to get itchanged on the state level.
Then I'll talk with others.
They say we need to get itchanged on the federal level,
because then the federal levelwill dictate what the state
level actually does.
However, that's not always thecase.
Getting anything changed ateither level is like climbing
(18:58):
Mount Everest.
I spoke with a legislator onthe national level.
If it wasn't for his name andconnections that he had, which
allowed him to get his bill onanother bill that was already
happening, if not for that, itwouldn't have happened.
He worked very hard to getchange.
So we need more like him thatwill try to get some things
(19:22):
going for everyone's benefit.
So how do we get past this?
Because it seems like thepaperwork is just getting
overloaded while people arestill getting thrown in the
system that just don't belongthere.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
It is a system that's going to have to fix itself
while running at full steam.
There's not going to be anability to stop the need.
We're going to have to justinterject ourselves into things
as they're happening and try andfix it on the fly.
At a state level, you know,might have more of a chance of
getting someone to listen thanat a federal level, at least
(19:56):
initially, it'd be great to havefederal resources allocated,
although I won't get into thecurrent political and crises we
may be facing with getting anyof that type of assistance or
strange things that are going on.
But we have to do something andI know there's a lot of other
criminal defense attorneys whowould agree with all this.
(20:17):
I wouldn't hesitate to call upmy colleagues and say don't you
agree?
And they would all say, yeah,we agree, but we don't know what
to do.
We don't have an answer to howto fix it, and a lot of that is
because we're looking.
We're not looking a year downthe road or five years down the
road.
We're looking six weeks downthe road when I have the hearing
, and then that hearing comesand goes and unfortunately that
(20:41):
file gets closed out.
We move on to the next thingand we start all over and we may
have some retainedinstitutionalized knowledge that
I'm happy to share.
Anything I have with anybodyelse and I find most of my
colleagues are the same way butit may need to come from public
defenders the elected publicdefenders or appointed public
defenders, depending on thejurisdiction to be able to talk
(21:03):
about things loud enough andwith enough kind of background
and statistics that they keepthemselves.
So that might be a great placeto start.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
I've always been a believer, a firm believer, that
if you want to get somethingdone, you work hard enough.
It can get done With that said.
When you get into legislation,you work hard enough, it can get
done With that said.
When you get into legislation,you get into the political side
of things and then all theparameters of it.
You just brought it up.
Everyone's busy doing their ownthing.
They're focusing on one case ata time.
(21:35):
When that's done, they move onto the next one.
There has to be a way wheresomeone can get across to these
people, make them realize notonly are they saving millions of
dollars, but they're savingthemselves time and they're
helping people along the way.
I hate to say that it seemshopeless, but boy, it almost
(21:58):
seems like you're a novicemountain climber looking at
Mount Everest as your firstmountain to climb.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
Yeah, change is hard.
Change is real hard and peoplewill resist change every step,
especially in the system wherethere's a lot of motivation for,
like I said, for people just toget things off their desk and
move on, to add an extra step inthere or ask someone to spend
some time putting into place anew system, is tough.
Funding it is always going tobe a problem and these are
(22:26):
programs that have to begovernment funded.
There's not going to be aprivate donor step up and who
are going through the systems,sometimes by the very nature of
what they're going through, arenot going to have the personal
financial resources to be ableto fund their own way.
That's just a reality for a lotof people.
And I know I mentioned beforeand I'll bring it up, our
homeless population is full ofmental health problems probably
(22:51):
could be treated and these youknow a lot of the individuals
who are just languishing andreally struggling on so many
fronts, not just from a povertyfront but from the mental health
front, and physical, untreatedphysical ailments.
A lot of these people are rightin our face every day.
We're gonna have to provide theresources for them, but we
(23:12):
can't get them to get a job.
Take some responsibility foryourselves.
We can't do that until we canget their mindset right, until
we help get them set up tosucceed.
Otherwise we're just pickingthem up, dusting them off.
Maybe we give them some newclothes, some toiletries, a
place to stay for a few nightsand they're going to be right
(23:33):
back out into the struggle again.
They don't have those toolsmentally to put together
everything they need and a lotof them are very ill.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Yeah, there's a certain amount of the population
that will never ever get better.
Unfortunately, they seem to bea lost cause.
You just mentioned the homeless.
They're not a lost cause.
They don't have the knowledge.
They don't have the money, theyjust lost their direction.
Don't have the knowledge, theydon't have the money, they just
lost their direction.
They have the stress.
Some of them are autistic, havesensory overload.
(24:06):
It just throws them into aworld where they just don't know
what to do.
Then they have those that pushback, telling them they can't do
it, which takes away their hopein trying to do it.
Ultimately, we have to getacross to the legislators, both
state and national, that this issomething that absolutely has
(24:29):
to be changed to make thingsbetter for everyone.
How do we do this?
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Tragedy.
Sometimes we'll spurn the mediato do something.
It's a terrible thing to thinkis what it's going to take.
But we saw some reform afterthings like the death of George
Floyd and we can see somechanges in policing there.
We're also dealing with acertain level of disparity,
because when the wealthy, thepowerful class has someone in
(24:57):
their family with a mentalhealth problem, it gets treated,
it gets dealt with.
This shouldn't be a problem intheir eyes.
With a mental health problem,it gets treated, it gets dealt
with.
This shouldn't be a problem intheir eyes.
You just go do the thing and aslong as you do the things,
everything's going to be okay.
And why isn't everyone justdoing the things?
Obviously now we can go downthe rabbit hole of our
healthcare system in thiscountry, spend a few hours on
that.
But it just makes sense to mewhen we're looking at a portion
(25:21):
of our population that thecynical and, I think,
ill-informed portions of societylook at and say it's a burden,
or those people are dangerous orthose are people that are prone
for criminal activity.
And we know, because commonsense tells us in addition to
our own experiences, that a lotof that portion of the
population has untreated mentalhealth.
(25:42):
Why not provide a little bit ofthose resources so we don't
have to provide the otherresources?
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Absolutely so.
In closing, what would you liketo tell the listeners that you
think is important that theyhear about what we've been
talking about and, of course,what you're doing?
Speaker 2 (25:57):
There are people in the system who do care and who
do want to learn and who do wantto take whatever we learn and
share it with our colleagues sothat we can make change.
But we're not equipped for it,naturally, as part of our
professional progression and thepath that most of us take to
(26:21):
get to these positions.
So we will miss some, we willswing at some pitches and
totally miss and maybe evenstrike out on some issues.
But there are those of us whoreally do care and who really do
want to see change and who wantto see these issues addressed
properly.
We just need help from peoplein the medical fields informing
(26:44):
us and coming forward andproviding us with scholarly
articles and information that wecan use, and we need help from
our colleagues on the lawenforcement side and the
judiciary to listen and have anopen mind for this.
But we are here.
We do want to help.
There are a lot of us.
We talk about it.
It really is a significantissue that, for however long our
(27:06):
criminal justice system isgoing to go on and has gone on,
it's going to need to beaddressed.
Shocking, it hasn't yet.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Yeah, so true.
Well, this has been a greatconversation, a lot of great
information.
I appreciate you coming on.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Tony, it was great to get the invitation.
It's been my pleasure.
Thanks again, thanks for takingthe time out of your busy
schedule to listen to our showtoday.
We hope that you enjoyed it asmuch as we enjoyed bringing it
to you.
If you know anyone that wouldlike to tell us their story,
send them to tonymantorcomcontact then they can give us
(27:51):
their information so one daythey may be a guest on our show.
One more thing we ask telleveryone everywhere about why
Not Me, the world, theconversations we're having and
the inspiration our guests giveto everyone everywhere that you
are not alone in this world.
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