Veterans Treatment Court

The blog was dormant yesterday in honor of Veterans Day. Belated thanks to those who have served. [Editor's note: Including Jamie, who was a captain in the Air Force before law school.] This time last year saw the opening of North Carolina’s first veterans treatment court in Harnett County. The governor and other leaders attended the opening ceremony. A year later, the court is graduating its first class today. Other veterans courts are coming online across the state. Cumberland’s court gets underway this week, and others are planned in Durham, Buncombe, and other counties—primarily those that are home to the state’s larger VA medical centers. What exactly is a veterans treatment court? Like other specialty and therapeutic courts, veterans courts are part court, part program. They are designed to focus on the special circumstances—post-traumatic stress, substance abuse, and other mental and physical illnesses—that can lead some former servicemembers into contact with the criminal justice system. The court operates as a team, with judge, prosecutor, defense lawyer, probation officer, law enforcement, and others working with a court coordinator to take a collaborative, problem-solving approach to each defendant’s case. Defendants consent to a system of graduated sanctions in response to certain types of noncompliance and rewards for achieving certain milestones. Programmatically, the court serves as a hub for the various healthcare, treatment, housing, and educational benefits available to many former servicemembers through the VA and other sources. A key feature of the court is that defendants appear before it frequently—about every other week [...]