Mitchell’s family said they believed he starved to death after refusing meals and medication at the jail, where he was being held on misdemeanour charges of petty larceny and trespassing. A clerk at Portsmouth district court said Mitchell was accused of stealing a bottle of Mountain Dew, a Snickers bar and a Zebra Cake worth a total of $5 from a 7-Eleven.
August 28, 2015
"A young black man arrested by police in Portsmouth, Virginia, on the same day that one of the city’s officers fatally shot an unarmed black 18-year-old, has been found dead in jail after spending almost four months behind bars without bail for stealing groceries worth $5."
"Jamycheal Mitchell, who had mental health problems, was discovered lying on the floor of his cell by guards early last Wednesday, according to authorities..."
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51 comments:
Shouldn't we be allowed to steal if it's just $5.00 worth of stuff?
I mean, c'mon! It's just $5.00.
I'm voting for the candidate who says we should all be allowed to steal, as long as it's under $5.00.
It sounds like Mr. Mitchell died of bureaucracy.
I find it interesting that the article does not explore Mr. Mitchell's criminal history, if any.
Other than the timeframe, what is the linkage to William Chapman's death? Sensationalism? Racial outrage? Selling newspapers?
"Perry said the 24-year-old had been housed alone in a regular jail cell comprising a bunk with a mattress, a toilet, a sink, a shelf and a slit-like window. She said she did not know the size of the cell and declined to estimate.
That's pretty much what jails look like. Nice sympathy attempt.
Jamycheal Mitchell, aka Jean Valjean. Four months behind bars for petty larceny seems a bit harsh. Is there really that much unused jail space in Portsmouth?
"Mitchell’s family said they believed he starved to death after refusing meals and medication at the jail, where he was being held on misdemeanour charges of petty larceny and trespassing."
So, he was mentally ill?
The Gaurdian? Oh, yeah, you'll get the straight, unvarnished truth from the dudes at the Guardian!
I have come to the conclusion that the most popular Left wing web sites, like HuffPo, TPM, Kos, DU, and the Guardian exist only to drive their readers into a state of frothing hatred for the parts of America they do not control. If HuffPo, TPM, Kos, DU, and the Guardian explicitly did exist for this purpose, how would they be different from what they are now?
@Original Mike
Yes, as the article says: "... Judge Morton Whitlow ruled Mitchell was not competent to stand trial and ordered that he be transferred to Eastern State hospital, a state-run mental health facility in Williamsburg, for treatment.... [T]ypically in such cases 'we do an order to restore the defendant to competence, send it to the hospital, and when the hospital has a bed, we do a transportation order, and he’s taken to the hospital.'... But the hospital said it had no vacancy and the 24-year-old was therefore detained in jail until his death on 19 August, according to Adams, Mitchell’s aunt, who said she had tried to assist the hospitalisation process herself but was left frustrated."
The young man was ill and needed treatment.
Why the hell didn't his family bail him out?
"The young man was ill and needed treatment."
If your life is in the government's hands, it's a crap shoot.
Gahrie:
If his particular type of craziness scared his family, they may not have wanted him out. If he was a danger to others and the mental hospital was full, jail might still seem better than freedom. Not in retrospect, of course, in this case, but it should have been better for him.
Something is wrong with this story ...
granted, I'm in CA where petty theft is pretty much a do-it-get-out-of-jail-free card (we are even just citing them in the field) but really?
Being a Navy and Marine town, Portsmouth 7/11s have a hard line on young men stealing pogey bait.
The young man was ill and needed treatment.
This is the same treatment we all can expect from Obamacare.
#blacklivesmatter
Ann Althouse said...
"The young man was ill and needed treatment."
The government failed. The answers are obvious.
1. We need more government.
2. All whites are racists.
Rinse. Repeat.
He received the same level of treatment that veterans do at Obama's Veterans Health Administration. Precisely the same level.
"The young man was ill and needed treatment."
The remedy offered by the left will be to have low level street crime federalized, or the matters that are usually left to local and state authorities to deal with federalized. There is no reason to believe that this will actually improve things for people like Mitchell (cf the VA scandal), but it will allow the least representative level of American government to control local law enforcement. This is the goal of civil rights activists; if you consider yourself a member of a despised minority you have no love for democracy.
When the same thing happens under federal jurisdiction, the Left will blame the tax cuts of the Evil Bush and the Koch brothers for underfunding the federal government.
We've seen this play before.
Stalin had no more or less concern for starving Russian peasants before the revolution than he had after the revolution. Not for a millisecond are the readers of the Guardian concerned about the death of a poor, crazy Black man in prison. His death is another paving stone on their path to power.
Having read the whole linked story, this post by the Professor is selectively edited such that one reading only what she has included is missing many pertinent points. Shoddy work*, Professor.
*Unless it is a test to see who actually follows the link before commenting.
eric said...
Shouldn't we be allowed to steal if it's just $5.00 worth of stuff?
No, but the death penalty seems a little harsh. There probably exists some reasonable middle ground.
When is someone not considered a "young man"? 24 seems pretty adult.
This case sounds like a good wrongful death suit to me. The Soulless Bureaucracy killed him.
I doubt he would be offered bail, if he was ruled incompetent.
Ann Althouse said...
The young man was ill and needed treatment.
Given he was a mental case serious enough to get committed, and the family may have been scared of him, since bail for $5 theft can't be high, mightn't releasing him have been the proximate cause of injury or death to somebody (including the dead man?)
leaving him in jail had risks, letting him out had risks, only now that we know the outcome of one course does the other course seem the best.
more insight into the cultural "wealth" african americans produce in the usa
His suffering is over now.
I think that in some circumstances folks are "youths" up to 25. At least in the homelessness business. At least in Massachusetts.
Regards — Cliff
Althouse, it suits your biases to see this young man as another black victim killed by the police, but it just so happened he was black and it just so happened his death happened behind bars...these factors were incidental to the fact that he was a disturbed individual who, had he been white, with all other factors the same, would have likely ended up dead as well.
/R. Cook
"But the hospital said it had no vacancy and the 24-year-old was therefore detained in jail until his death on 19 August, according to Adams, Mitchell’s aunt, who said she had tried to assist the hospitalisation process herself but was left frustrated."
This, like most of these shooting stories, is about mental health and the breakdown of the metal hospital system in the 1960s. A breakdown that was fully supported by the left and by Republican governors like Reagan. It is a scandal, or would be if anyone was interested.
Read My Brother Ron, by Clayton Cramer.
My review of the book is here.
From the article: "Maria Reppas, a spokeswoman for the department, said she would not discuss why a hospital bed for Mitchell was apparently not found. “Healthcare privacy laws, specifically HIPAA, do not permit DBHDS to comment on any individual’s treatment,” she said in an email."
Thank God we have these laws to protect our privacy. And of course the asses of those who might have failed to act responsibly.
What kind of rap sheet did he have? And his relatives said he had a bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.
So he was a nut that stole things.
Sad story. It highlights how poorly equipped the jail was to deal with the mentally ill--- for instance, exoecting someone who was incompetant to stand trial to be competent to come up with a visitors list.
It seems like the court should have appointed him some sort of advocate? And that perhaps he should have been transferred to the local hospital as he deteriorated?
Too many people dropped the ball. I hope they learn something from this. And I think the family should sue the state for negligence in the case.
And I think the family should sue the state for negligence in the case.
The state should sue the family for negligence as well just to make it a wash.
Where has the "family" been for the past four months? Mentally deficient people need special support from their family.
And what happened to our legal system with regards to a speedy trial? Punishment always should match the crime. In my hometown, cops do not even respond to shoplifting calls.
The judge said bail was not an option. I presume his behavior in society was an issue.
He lost 65 lb in jail and refused his multiple meds. Could the hospital have forced him to eat and take his meds? If not, the outcome would not have changed.
Sounds like another case of "criminal system poorly substituting for dismantled mental health asylums". Jails aren't set up to deal with lunatics who refuse their medication and food. Given the problems described, he's probably only functional soaking in thorazine.
You would starve yourself to death beciase you are dealing with a misdemeanor charge? Clearly you are mentally challenged. Cops are not to be blamed beciase someone takes extreme actions in response to a minor incident. And I don't want to hear libertarians indict the system beciase this guy killed himself. Sure, he stole - couple of bucks worth of stuff. It's still theft and non violent and cops can still be called in to book them.
Areasonableman wrote:
eric said...
"No, but the death penalty seems a little harsh. There probably exists some reasonable middle ground."
He didn't receive a death penalty beciase he stole 35 dollars worth of food. He didn't receive a death penalty at all. No, he let himself die. Because he was crazy. And beciase the state couldn't find a hospital bed for him. You want to indict anybody, blame the beuracracy over not having a bed available. His death had nothing to do with him stealing food and the laws concerning theft of low cost items.
"Mentally deficient people need special support from their family."
Families have been desperately trying to get the system to respond but there is a powerful group in society, especially on the left but also libertarians who buy the "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" argument that the mentally ill are just "different " and are oppressed by society and rules. If a psychotic individual won't take his meds, the family is given very few tools to try to force him. Jails are filled with the mentally ill. Maybe 40% of prisoners in some jurisdictions are psychotic.
It seems like an easy lawsuit to win for the surviving family. Maybe hitting these towns in the pocketbook will lead to real changes.
People should not die because of bureaucracy.
When the penal system takes someone in, the penal system should be responsible for that person's welfare.
I don't see why we're mourning this guy. American veterans get no better treatment under this administration.
His family wasn't negligent. They weren't permitted to visit because they weren't on the list. Because the mentally ill guy didn't put them on the list.
This story is fairly typical, except that the man died. Mentally ill persons get arrested over and over, are found incompetent and are released, only to be re-arrested. Most arrests are for minor crimes, like this, but that shouldn't mean that businesses or private citizens should bear the burden of having the mentally ill commit crimes with impunity. At least the judge in this circumstance tried to send the man for treatment instead of just dumping him back on the street to offend again.
As posted by others, the man chose not to take his medications, which was his right to choose. Being mentally ill, he acted in a way that was not in his own self-interests, and starved himself to death. In the late '60's and early '70's, there was a huge sea change in the way we handled the mentally ill, including extending to the mentally incompetent the right to make their own decisions about health care - pretty ironic when you think about it - and this kind of thing is the result. So is the number of homeless filling our cities, of whom some 60% or (likely) more are mentally ill. As a result of those changes, the large infrastructure of mental hospitals was dismantled, and liberals decided that the mentally ill would flock to local support groups and neighborhood clinics, and would flourish in their new found freedom from involuntary commitments. Which, of course, would require more rational behavior than present in the mentally ill.
More great ideas from Central Planning.
I know most of the commenters here are pretty conservative, and I am as well, but there are some things that the state has to do. One of those is taking care of people who are so mentally ill that they can't take care of themselves. Yes, you'd like families to be involved and have some say about what happens, and of course you want the mentally ill themselves to have as much autonomy as possible so long as that autonomy is consistent with good psychiatric treatment. But at the end of the day, there are some people who need to be taken care of, and there is no one but the state able to do it. No one else, for example, can order involuntary treatment. Trouble is, providing adequate care for mentally ill people is expensive. Really, really expensive, and nobody wants to pay for it.
Some people claim that half or more of the people in some prisons are mentally ill. I don't know whether or not that's actually correct, but I do know from dealings my family has had that mental health facilities in Virginia are grossly underfunded and inadequate to meet the need. Waiting lists to get a bed in an inpatient facility are very long, and there are hundreds of people waiting in prisons for beds to open up in the inpatient facilities. I've visited a patient at the state's main facility in Petersburg, and it is old, decrepit, dark and gloomy. The county Community Service Boards are the main players in taking care of mentally ill people who aren't wealthy, and they are way underfunded for the job they are supposed to do.
jr565 said...
Because he was crazy.
He stole food, but wouldn't eat the food they gave him for "free".
One of those is taking care of people who are so mentally ill that they can't take care of themselves.
Not anymore..thanks to Congressional Dems and the courts.
Now the State only has to take care of those who are a danger to themselves or others. The problem being, you don't usually know they are a danger until it is too late.
Why the maudlin concern for housing the mentally ill who commit crimes in jails? Mentally ill people who commit crimes have still committed crimes. Or are they like Rosie O'Donnell's adopted daughter whose plight somehow becomes more urgent because she is "mentally ill"? Because regular girls who hook up with illict drug dealers are somehow more safe?
What is the real difference between jails and asylums? They both have locked doors and the majority of "therapy" or day-to-day interaction occurs with low level technicians or prison guards anyway. There's not much difference, except that prisons are more upfront about release dates, which depend more on legal precedent and less on psychiatrists and bureaucrats at insurance companies.
And if psychiatric treatment is as modern and technologically adept as people like to think it is, why has there been no development of implantable medications? Surely if psychiatric medications are the miracle drugs people like to think they are, and the problem is just those pesky, non-compliant patients, a more reliable drug delivery system could be developed that would just keep them on their meds for longer periods.
It's not like psychiatrists are shooting in the dark with potent cocktails, which patients then improperly wean themselves off of or mix with alcohol and street meds, right?
The real breakthrough will be the meds that convert liberals into conservatives, or vice versa, depending on which political wind is blowing. Then the "right" people will be locked up, and everyone will be safe.
And on a more positive note, there is quiet hope in the work of researchers like Dr. Sabine Bahn and Dr. Jeffrey Swanson: http://www.propublica.org/article/myth-vs-fact-violence-and-mental-health.
Laura,
Do you really not understand that intent counts for something in determining whether or not a particular act was criminal? Do you not understand why NGRI (not guilty by reason of insanity) pleas are part of our judicial systems? Have you ever met a schizophrenic up close and personal for an extended period of time? It appears you have no idea what you are talking about. But then, this is the internet after all.
Umm, the difference between prison and a hospital. Well, gee, I just looked in the dictionary and found that punishment and treatment are not actually the same word. Who'da thunk it?
@Jeff -
The way things work now, the mentally ill can decide whether they take their medication or not. Yes, I have experience with the mentally ill. So, as Laura says, unless a person is a danger to themselves or to others, they cannot be confined against their will. And even if they are confined, it's usually only long enough to get them doped to the eyebrows - get their chemicals in balance as they say - and they're released, to stop taking their medications again whenever they wish.
When the mentally ill break the law, they usually know exactly what they're doing, and also know they'll escape responsibility for their actions. Except for the truly psychotic, mentally ill people are more or less in touch with their surroundings, even if they are subject to wild ranges of emotion, highs and lows, paranoia, rages and the like. That range of emotion is why they stop taking medicine, in fact. When they break the law by stealing, they have intent. When they commit acts of vandalism and violence, they know what they're doing is wrong but chose to ride the emotional high. That anger is exactly what they miss when medicated.
Look at the Aurora shooter. He's obviously loony as hell, but he knew what he was doing, planned ahead of time, and made plans to escape afterwards, signaling he recognized the significance of his actions. He was legally sane.
We had a more-or-less national system of mental hospitals back in the 60's and early 70's. Some were good, some not, but at least there was a system. However, a movement I'll characterize as liberal pushed for the mentally ill to be in charge of their own treatment. Rather unsurprisingly, the mentally ill, having gained control of their own treatment, and their liberal friends decided hospitalization was not the preferred method of treatment when in crisis. The preference was for community support and neighborhood clinics (or something. No one really thought this through). The hospitals disappeared almost overnight, since it was a government expense that could be better spent elsewhere. I remember the conversations: People were being thrown into hospitals that were just like jails. And they hadn't done anything wrong! They were sick, not criminals.
Laura is actually pretty much on target. You don't like the way the mentally ill are treated? Find a way to make their involuntary commitment easier, before they do something really bad. Pretty clearly, most families fail to do this. And even if they try, the system is rigged against such efforts.
"...implantable medications"
Of course, finding the right mix and dose is more of an art than science these days, I think. Or maybe the intent is just to keep them near-comatose. How long does it take to find the correct mix, and how often does a viable Rx suddenly bomb out, due to stress hormones or self-medicating with street drugs or booze?
But I like the concept.
JCC,
In Virginia, if you commit a crime and plead NGRI, the judge can commit you, and you don't get out unless and until the state's psychiatrist says you're sane. The state may decide that you're better, but not capable of taking care of yourself, and they turn you over to the county CSB. The CSB has no choice, they have to find you a place somewhere. Unfortunately, given the funding available, the places they find are often pretty dismal. The people in the system who were sent there by a judge are the lucky ones. Mentally ill people seeking treatment who haven't been committed by a judge apparently are much lower on the CSB priority list.
The whole system sucks rocks, but it's not the fault of the people staffing it. The problem is a lack of funds. To return to a system more like what used to happen fifty or sixty years ago would cost even more. And it isn't going to happen so long as so many people think, as apparently you and Laura do, that mental illness is just a character flaw. For someone who claims some experience with the mentally ill, you seem to have remarkably little sympathy.
I do agree with you that it would be a good thing if we could somehow insure that people for whom medication works actually take it. But while we could probably come up with some ways that would work for some of that population, there will always be some for whom we can't. It is a hard problem. The reformers of the 1960's and 70's went too far in the direction of treating mentally ill people as if they weren't actually mentally ill. But they were reacting against some real and perceived horrors. Surely we can do better than that.
I'm very much afraid, however, that nothing much will be done. Like prison reform and police reform, most people act as if the victims deserve their fates. We are a remarkably UnChristian nation in many respects.
A judicial finding of NGRI is actually quite rare. Most of the time, judges will either allow a mentally ill defendant to plead guilty and get time served (in the interests of justice, of course) or more likely, will simply dismiss the charges. Only in situations of very serious charges will proceedings usually continue when the defendant has a history of mental illness, since everyone can see where thingsa re going to end up anyway. Even if the defendant is legally sane (but nuts), he/she will probably be unable to assist with the defense and the case is going nowhere. Defendants who reoffend time and again are sometimes sent for evaluation, which usually means either the judge suspects sham illness, or the judge wants someone to take steps to treat the defendant to stop the constant law breaking. Which seems to be what happened in this case.
Again, involuntary commitment occurs only when the ill person represents a threat to himself or to others, or is the subject of a criminal prosecution.
I don't think mental illness is a character flaw, but I do think that by definition, allowing a person who is mentally ill to decide on their own course of treatment is frankly, stupid and shortsighted. If you have any experience at all, you recognize the futility of this. Most of the long term homeless in this country are that way because of mental illness, usually exacerbated by substance abuse because they self-medicate. Take a look around any major city, or even small city these days, and tell me how well this is working out.
BTW, assuming you have experience with this, then you also know mental illness can express itself, among other things, as very poor impulse control, and low levels of human empathy, right? So your experience with bipolar disorder (or whatever) may not be the same as someone else's ordeal. Don't be so judgmental.
JCC,
I do agree with you that in many cases allowing mentally ill people to make their own decisions about their treatment is, well, crazy. If they could make good decisions, by definition almost they aren't mentally ill.
My own experience is with someone close to me who developed schizophrenia gradually over a number of years, and was voluntarily hospitalized for it several times. When she started committing bizarre crimes (shoplifting while loudly singing hymms, defecating on the Interstate during rush hour, refusing to stop when ordered by a police officer, etc...) the judge in the case ordered an evaluation at her attorney's request. The NGRI was agreed to with the prosecution after he saw the psychologist's report.
Schizophrenia is truly bizarre. A shrink explained it to me as: think of all the sensory impressions and thoughts in your head all being routed through an old-fashioned switchboard, with an operator throwing switches and plugging lines into other lines to make the proper connections. Then imagine the operator drunk or on drugs. Thoughts that would normally be ignored suddenly become prominent. Things that would usually be thought important are ignored, while others that make no sense come into the foreground. A particular color may assume cosmic importance to you. Remembered voices are actually heard, not just remembered. And they yell at you or criticize you incessantly. You have no control over this. In the mind's effort to make sense of nonsense, you may decide that the voices you're hearing are angels.
It is a horrible and frightening disease. The most intimate violation of all is the one that takes away your ability to think. No wonder so many commit suicide.
I think we should help these poor people as much as we can, within reason. We're not doing that now. It is infuriating that we can find the money to spend on garbage like diversity programs and weapons systems the military doesn't even want, but we can't take care of the most helpless among us.
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