PRESS RELEASE

SUSAN D. REED

CRIMINAL DISTRICT ATTORNEY

BEXAR COUNTY, TEXAS

I am pleased to announce that I have forged an agreement to implement a Veteran’s Court in Bexar County that will meet the needs of the Veteran as well as protect the rights of the victims and allow them a voice in the system.

Legislation passed last session, allowed counties, through Commissioners Courts, because of course there are funding issues, to create a criminal justice pre –trial diversion program to address the needs of defendants who are veterans and suffer from diagnosed mental disorder or brain injury which resulted from service in hazardous areas and which played a part in the commission of the offense. The statute authorized this for all offenses, felony and misdemeanor and made no exceptions. Capital murder to traffic ticket could be addressed. Under the statute, the District Attorney must agree to the individual being placed in the program.

In February, I agreed to a grant program request the County wished to submit that would provide for a misdemeanor veterans court. In March I made a suggestion for a veteran’s court, which would cover those veterans undiagnosed, but who were apparently suffering from such a disorder and had simply not been diagnosed. They would be evaluated and the determination made whether or not they met the diagnosis requirement. I based that on the experience that many veterans don’t claim they are veterans when entering the system and don’t want to go to the VA hospitals, yet are obviously in need. My program was a regular supervision and not a pretrial diversion program. There are issues related to diversion programs that take away many of the advancements victims advocate programs have made in relation to enhancement for subsequent offenses. Further, non-compliance with a program would start the criminal case over from the beginning, thus not ending in a concrete result for the victim until much much later in the process and therefore not allowing closure.

Today we have forged a program through agreement with Senator Van De Putte’s office, one of the authoring Senators, my office, the County Commissioners staff and the County Court staff to implement a hybrid diversion/probation program. Diversion would only be for low level misdemeanor offenses, which the facts suggest would be appropriate, that were either victimless or had the victims consent. The inclusion of the diversion aspect allows for state grant funding should the County be successful in obtaining it. The program also includes my regular probation program as well as the diagnosis to be confirmed aspect which I wanted.

All in all I would say this represents a balanced approach. I felt it was necessary to ensure that victims would be heard and not to have the system focus solely on defendant’s rights. I accomplished that goal. Victims have a role and a voice in the program, restitution will be a component, and veterans will get services they need and may have been hesitant to access. This is a win for veterans, a win for victims and a win for the community.