By the time you read this, our son may be on a bus whose destination is Porterville State Mental Hospital.
He will have had his day (days, actually — a year of postponements, continuances and hearings) in court, while the judge tried to decide what could be done with him given the ambiguity of the Penal Code and the Welfare and Institutions Code in relation to the developmentally disabled. How did this occur?
It”s a simple recipe. Start with the agencies mandated by the Welfare and Institutions Code, also known as the Lanterman Act (which is so dredged down in minutia that it can specify where a pipeline should be laid between the town of Porterville and the mental health facility, yet cannot direct a judge on how to deal with an innocent defendant who cannot be tried and therefore cannot plead or prove his innocence, other than to incarcerate him/her!). Add employees who interpret bylaws to their own purposes, opinions and personal prejudices. Stir in someone with the mental capacity of an 8- to 11-year-old and tell them that no one can tell them what to do (even for their own safety). Be sure not to add common sense or ask anyone for advice.
Place the mentally-challenged person in the community at large with services that can be withdrawn at any time, leaving no safety net; and above all, try never to add the family or caregivers, because they will totally mess up the recipe, asking for extra ingredients — such as decent housing and food and better training and supervision — which the developmentally disabled person will not ask for themselves, being happy to live on candy and pizza, and spending their money on alcohol and drugs when they come under the influence of Lake County”s finest citizens. They will even enjoy being the victims of sex crimes and physical abuse, which will not be prosecuted because they are unreliable witnesses. Once all of this has been done, walk away. Your recipe is complete.
You all know who you are, you know who my son is, and you know who I am. I hope that you will remember our faces until the day that you die — especially his trusting eyes. This did not need to happen; my son was not responsible for his actions. He was placed in situations that he could not handle, by you! The blame does not rest with the courts, who are merely doing their jobs — albeit heavy-handedly — but with you.
Our son cannot even plead his innocence because his disability prevents him from pleading or being tried. So he, under the law and at the judge”s discretion, can be imprisoned for up to three years until he becomes competent and resentenced for another three years, ad infinitum. The developmentally disabled are our dirty little secret; our equivalent to the Russian Gulags and Columbia”s “disappeared ones” — held without sentencing, jailed without trial.
You should be deeply ashamed, as you enjoy the freedom of your summer vacations in your motor homes or at the races (which he loves), as you win recognition and sit in high places, or rest in the comfort of your homes after a nice meal and a hot shower in a comfortable bed watching a little TV and drifting off to sleep; but your moral corruption goes so deep that you are beyond shame.
My son deserved so much better than to be imprisoned in Porterville. And you deserve so much worse.
Having been through competency training once, and facing commitment to Porterville State Hospital, the judge accepted a recommendation that the competency trainer be given a second chance to train him into competency to stand trial. If he is still incompetent in July (his next court date) he still faces committment. If he is deemed competent, he will be tried like any other citizen — except that it will be for a crime he is accused of committing while incompetent!
Elizabeth Miravalle is a resident of Clearlake Oaks.
