New Orleans judge’s mental health treatment program is open for business, and he wants more of it – NOLA.com

The New Orleans City Council last month approved $100,000 in next year's budget for a special Orleans Parish Civil District Court program aimed at helping people with mental illness receive outpatient treatment.

The program, which seeks to use the black robe effect the presumed authority of judges to ensure that patients follow treatment plans, started accepting patients in December 2018.

But Judge Kern Reese said hes run into one major problem since the assisted outpatient treatment program he oversees went live: Despite dozens of referrals, not enough people have qualified to enter the program.

We got everything in place. It seems like we got the big party ready, and we just need to get people to come, Reese said in a recent interview.

Now he is asking for more referrals to help the mentally ill stay on the path to stability. He wants relatives, caregivers and hospitals to nominate more people to participate.

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A man with a decades-long struggle with schizophrenia jumped New Orleans Police Officer Nicola Cotton in 2008, taking her gun and shooting her

The program uses the authority of the court to nudge people with mental illness into treatment. Under a state law passed after a man with schizophrenia shot and killed New Orleans police officer Nicola Cotton in 2008, anyone who fits certain criteria can be ordered into a treatment plan.

But the law went largely unused in the New Orleans area until mental health advocate Janet Hays of Healing Minds NOLA championed its use with Reese. Planning began in 2017.

To deem a candidate eligible, a judge must find that the person has had at least two involuntary psychiatric hospitalizations, or has received mental health services while in jail, in the previous 36 months.

Or the judge must find that candidates have made threats or committed acts of "serious violent behavior" in the past 36 months, and are unlikely to voluntarily participate in a treatment plan.

Unlike in criminal law, civil court judges cannot send someone to prison for failing to follow a treatment plan. But Reese said he has the power to notify the state that a participant may need to be involuntarily committed for psychiatric treatment.

The court has received 51 referrals in 2019. But many were turned back because they didnt meet the criteria under state law or because the referred person didn't live in Orleans Parish, Reese said.

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New Orleans Police Department Officer Nicola Cotton died at 24, the victim of a mentally ill man who gained control of her service weapon and

Many times referrals come when a person is in the midst of an acute psychiatric episode, which isnt an ideal time to bring them before a judge to agree on a treatment plan, he said.

The judge hopes to keep building the programs roll of active participants, currently at five, with the aim of saving taxpayers the $1,500-a-day cost of hospitalizing a patient at the University Medical Centers psychiatric ward.

The City Councils money will primarily go toward supporting a member of Reese's staff, Ursula Newell-Davis, who coordinates the program.

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New Orleans judge's mental health treatment program is open for business, and he wants more of it - NOLA.com