Loan Shark Counseling

Restoring legal competency is never pretty

One year, I was assigned to work as a counselor with a guy who was almost interesting. He was about nineteen, sent to the nuthouse as Incompetent To Proceed on a list of charges, including Attempted Second Degree Murder, that stemmed from him being accused of driving a getaway car for a drive-by shooting. Lets call him Joey. Now, none of this made him even close to interesting. What got him close was that he was malingering: he was pretending to be too sick to prosecute, but he was not. He was, in fact, just a young guy trying very, very hard to be thuggish. In terms of being an actual thug, he was a washout. Not nearly tough enough, mentally or physically. However, in the cupcake, sheltered environment of a maximum security mental hospital (yeah, let that sentence seep in a little more), he was manipulative and charming enough to become a genuine pain in the a*s. He had just the right percentage of the staff wrapped around his finger so that the rest of them saw him as the Devil with gold-capped teeth. I saw him as a simple, quick turnaround to send him back to jail to go face his charges.

Unfortunately, one of the staff that he had bamboozled was the attending psychologist. I won't name him, so let's call him Dr. Ditz. Dr. Ditz assured me that this guy, along with his one buddy, were far, far too “cognitively impaired” (read: stupid) and depressed to be prosecuted without lots and lots of tender, loving care, and drugs. I very specifically countered this argument with hard evidence that the guy could read and write just fine, but was choosing not to. Oh, no, Dr. Ditz assured me, Joey was far too low functioning to do those things. I showed him a copy of a letter that the guy had written to one of his girlfriends. Dr. Ditz assured me, assured me with science, that the testing he'd done proved that Joey could not have written that letter. When I said that I could bring him to the building control room and show him video evidence that the guy had written that letter and others, he declined.

I said, “Are you telling me that you have no interest in seeing tangible video evidence, admissible in any court of law, that this client has repeatedly demonstrated a skill that you are asserting he cannot possibly possess?”

“I don't see what difference it would make. I know what my test results show, and its just not possible right now.” I s**t you not, this conversation actually took place. Your tax dollars hard at work.

So we could not get the report out that the guy was competent but malingering. So he hung around. For months. He became a mid-level thug in our rarefied environment, getting just enough grift and extra attention to create a problem, but never enough to convince Administration to lower the boom on him. I had the authority to keep him on the building, but only for cause. Being thuggish in and of itself, I was informed, was not cause enough.

However, as it turned out, “poor treatment compliance” could be a reason to keep him indoors. So, I decided to take matters into my own hands. One day I called him into my office, and we had a conversation. I had an intern at the time, a really nice girl we'll call Lois, who was getting ready to start working more independently with the clients. She was there from the beginning of this to the end.

“Hey, Joey, how's it going?

“I'm cool, what's up?” he looked around, wondering what I was up to.

“Well, Joey, here's the deal. You and I both know that you're playing a game here. No, no, don't get me wrong, I don't really blame you. If I was facing thirty years in prison, I'd do what I could to avoid it, too. But see, now the way you're running your game is interfering with some of my other clients, and I can't have that.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked, just as innocently as he could muster.

“Okay, see that shirt you're wearing? I know you won it from a guy on Building 7 in a card game. Now, that guy lost fair and square, so I'm not going to bust you on that. And those shoes on your feet: straight off a guy on Building 13, paying you back for all the canteen food you fronted him. Again, that guy wants to be a thug as bad as you do, so I'm not going there. But, Joey? That Walkman hanging outta your pocket came off of Ricky. Now, you and I know that Ricky goes into a panic and hits himself if the gravy on his dinner tray touches the dinner roll before he picks it up. Also, and more importantly, Ricky is one of MY clients. I will not have my highest functioning guys, like you, preying on my lowest functioning guys, like Ricky. So, we have a problem. What do you propose we do about it?”

Now this was a critical juncture. A real thug would either stick to a preset lie until the wheels fell off of it, or tell me to go f**k myself, get hostile. What I got was a quick glance to the intern, followed by this:

“I was just borrowin' the radio, I'll go give it back.”

“Good start, but I think we're going to just have to go ahead and get you competent! See, I know you can do it, and I can prove that you can do it. So, either you do it and get competent, or I tell the court that you're malingering. That means faking being sick. If I have to tell the court that, you're gonna be in some deep, dark s**t. Your chances of a deal go straight to hell. So, you need to get competent. Let's start with the basics, again: tell me the four please available to a criminal defendant in the state of Florida.”

“Okay, um, not guilty, um, innocent, aww dang, um, NGI (not guilty by reason of insanity), and, um, incompetent?”

“No, not quite, but I think you know that. Let's try this: today is Monday, right? Let's say, that, if you manage to learn all four pleas correctly and come in here, in my office, at 0900 on Friday, and tell me all four with no notes or hints, you'll get something special for the weekend!”

“What do I get?” he asked, excitedly.

“Your RA status!” I cried. This stood for Resident �" Alone, the highest mobility status, the one needed to leave the building without staff escort. As he well knew, when he said:

“WHAT? I GOT RA STATUS NOW!”

“I know, isn't that exciting and convenient? So now, if you come in here at 0900 on Friday and tell me all four pleas, you get to keep that RA status!”

“YOU TELLIN ME YOU GONNA DROP ME TO RS IF I CAN'T TELL YOU THEM FOUR PLEAS?” (note, RS stands for Resident �" Staff; they can leave the building, but the need a staff escort).

“Oh, heavens, no! If you don't come in here at 0900 on Friday and tell me all four pleas, correctly, mind you, I'm going to drop you to Pod status! You'll only leave the building if the doctor calls you to the clinic or if s**t catches on FIRE!”

“Man, you bullshittin!” He laughed a little, looked around the office nervously, and said, “Man you ain't doing that.”

“Okay, Joey, we're done here for now. See you Friday!”

As that week progressed, I learned that the word was out. I had several staff come and ask me about my new “treatment plan” for Joey. I knew which ones were on the take / wrapped up in his bullshit, because they all tried to talk me out of it. The rest of them were cheering me on.

Friday finally came around. I made sure the staff on duty that morning knew what was up and waited in my office. At 0855 he knocked on my door.

I opened the door and said, “HEY, Joey, come on in!”

Still standing in the doorway, sticking his head in, he said, “guiltynotguiltynocontestandNGI! Can I go now?

Glancing sideways at Lois, I said, “What? I could not understand a word you just said, dude. Come inside and talk to me, the morning is young!”

He came in and sat down. “Okay. Guilty. Not Guilty. No Contest. NGI. Can I go outside now? The line at the canteen is gonna get backed up.”

“Okay, you get to keep your status, congratulations! Now, explain each one and tell me what happens when you use it in court.”

“WHAT?!?! YOU SAID ALL I GOT TO DO WAS TELL YOU THE FOUR PLEAS!”

“That's right, and now I want to know what they mean. Do you know?”

“Um, guilty means you did it, not guilty means-”

“What happens if you use a guilty plea in court?”

“Um, they send you to a hospital like this?”

“Nope. Okay, here, the deal. You proved to me that you can learn, and now you're going to. Each Friday you're gonna come in here and tell me some new competency information if you want to keep your RA status. Next Friday, you're gonna come in here, right at 0900, and tell me all four pleas and what they mean, as well as what it means to use each one in court. Now, the good news is, Lois here is going to help you study on Monday and Wednesday, so you should do fine.”

“How long I gotta do that?”

“Until you know it all, all the competency material, and you can show the doctor that you can do it under pressure, in a staffing.”

“Man...so I need to tell you all four pleas AND all about them by next week?”

“0900 Friday, Joey, or you're gonna get real familiar with daytime television.”

Well, I didn't expect a thank you card, so I was not disappointed. He left, and the intern started laughing.

“I can't believe that worked!”

“Now, remember, he's going to be a lot more interested in your personal information than he is in this material.” She was bright, and she was eager to learn, but she was also cute. “Keep it concrete and hold him to his gains: he doesn't get to “forget” anything.”

The weekend passed, and I came in to work on Monday. As part of our routine, I got briefed by the staff over how things went over the weekend. The shift supervisor, who had seen through Joey's bullshit as fast and as well as I had, took me aside to talk.

“Rob, you might not believe this, but Joey has been working his butt off all weekend studying his competency. He's been bugging, me, the other staff, even some of the guys to help him. Now you know he can read and write, we had that discussion, but he ain't never had to learn stuff before, 'cept for how to count money.”

“I don't know, he seemed to learn those four pleas fast enough when I put the screws to him.”

“I think he already knew those, just to make sure he messed them up right for the doctors before. Wouldn't do to guess right by mistake! But, seriously, can we tutor him? I know the school he went to, it was a zoo. He needs to learn how to learn.”

“Hells yes we can tutor him! I'll teach the little b*****d statistics and world history if it'll get him outta here.”

The next week passed in a manner reminiscent of a '80s montage. Joey studied with the staff. Joey studied with Lois. He came to me twice asking for me to check his progress. On the second try, that Thursday afternoon, he did well enough that it would pass him.

“So, I did it?” he asked, with what appeared to be genuine pleasure.

“No, I said that would BE enough to pass. Now you just need to do it again, just like that, tomorrow morning at 0900.”

0900 Friday came around. Joey knocked on my door and I let him in. He explained everything he needed to about the Guilty plea, the Not Guilty plea, and the No Contest plea. When he got the the Not Guilty by reason of Insanity plea, he got about half of it right. In all fairness, that's a complicated plea, and it is rarely used. He knew he got some of it right, but he wasn't sure which parts were right and which parts he'd mixed up. I gave him a minute, told him to take a breath, and try again. He tried, but he screwed it up worse the second time.

“Three out of four! Not bad, Joey, not bad. Come back when you can tell me about that NGI plea.”

“So did I keep my RA?

“HAHAHAhahaa, oh, Joey, oh man, no. Get outta my sight, man. When you can come back and tell me that last plea right, you can have your RA.”

“AW MAN! YOU SERIOUS?”

(in my best Porky Pig voice) “eepedeepeededdeeepeededeep bup bup GET OUT! OUT OUT OUT! OUT!

“AWWWW SHIIIT!” he cried, as he ran from my office. Staff were watching on the monitors as he came tearing out of my office onto the pod area, begging the other clients to tell him the answer. My phone rang, it was the control board operator, gasping for breath from laughing. “Hey, Porky, how long you gonna let him on like this?”

“Until he comes in here and tells me what NGI means correctly. Tell you what, if he doesn't figure it out in a few minutes, tell him to go check his quiz book, but make it sound like you're going behind my back to tell him so he thinks he's being grifty.”

Meanwhile, Lois has finally started to calm herself down. Apparently, Porky Pig impressions are funny where she comes from.

She said, “He got that one last out of all of them, but he did get it in practice. He just started mixing his terms up at the end when he was on the spot in here.”

“I know, but I can't go back to court with him to hold his hand. He has to learn this.”

I can still hear him out on the pod, getting desperate. The campus was announced clear, and the other guys were all leaving the building. So he goes to his room to use his intercom, begging the staff to tell him the answer. The guys there never seemed to catch on to how much those buildings echoed, or at least to how loud they talked. My office was forty feet away from his room, maybe less. I heard it all, both sides of the conversation.

Staff said, “No way, Joey, I ain't in this. But, ain't all those answers in your book?”

“CMON, MA'AM, PLEASE! THE CANTEEN LINES GONNA BE AROUND THE BLOCK, AND ROB MIGHT LEAVE AN' ILL BE STUCK HERE FOR REAL!”

“You better get reading, then!”

The next five minutes ticked by, accompanied by a steady litany of flipping pages and muttered profanity from Joey's room as he looked for the answers. Lois and I were sitting in my office, with the door open, listening and trying to not laugh loud enough for him to hear us.

“Motherfuck, where's the? Where the f**k? C'mon, d****t, oh man, I owe Reggie three f****n Snickers, where's that damn �" aHA! GOT YOU! No, wait, I gotta read it, he ain't gonna let me read it in there, okay, s**t, NGI, NGI, here we go...”

I felt like Sam the Hobbit, listening to Gollum talking about the One Ring. Only this was hilarious. I gave him two minutes, then I opened my office door and said, real loud, “Okay, Lois, I think they're doing rounds on Building 14, lets go-”

“NONONONONONO! MR. ROB! WAIT!” he came flying out of his room and to my office door.

Standing in my door, sweating and leaning on the frame for support, he said,“NGI mean, whoo, lemme catch my breath, it mean you didn't know, huh, right from wrong, at, the time of the crime, cuz you was mentally, sick. If, whooo! If they find you NGI, you come here or some other, wh, hospital, mental hospital, and if it don't work, they send you up the river!”

“Joey?”

“Please Mr. Rob, whoo, don't play no more. Did I get it?”

“Joey, you got it. Next week you're gonna come in here and tell me all the courtroom officials and what they do. Now go get a drink of water and get the hell outta my building. I bet that canteen line is gonna be around the block by now.”

He shouted, “THANKS Mr. Rob” as he ran through the pod towards the front door. I didn't expect a thank you card, so I was not disappointed.

Weeks passed like this, with Joey learning all his material, piece by piece. One week, he got stuck. Genuinely stuck. I put him on Pod status, and a half hour went by. I called and asked the staff where he was (thinking he'd snuck out) and they told me he was curled up in his bed with his head under the pillow. I went to his room and saw him under the covers, head under his pillow. His feet were sticking out from the sheets. He still had his sneakers on.

“Joey, what the hell are you doing? You still owe me one answer, unless you want to stay in all week.”

“mmno.”

“What?”

“No, Mr. Rob! I don't know this one! I can't remember it straight!”

“Joey, you've been working your a*s off for weeks. You and I both know it. If you quit now, I'm not going to keep you on the building for not knowing an answer. I'm going to keep you on the building for acting like a f*****g punk and quitting.”

He looked up, and I could see that he'd been crying. I wondered for a moment if he was going to come after me, I couldn't read his expression. He just stared at me.

I said, “Now get your eyes off me, get your a*s outta that bed, get your nose in that book, and bring me that answer!”

I went back to my office and waited. Lois was looking at me kinda funny.

“Is this how you work with all your antisocials?”

“Oh, hell, no. A real antisocial would have had me killed for this. He's just a kid who wanted to be a thug when he grew up.”

Ten minutes passed. I called the staff in the control room and asked them what he was doing.

“He's standing on the pod, reading his book. Oh, he just went to his room and put the book up. Now he's coming to you.”

He knocked on the door. Now, he stumbled a bit, it wasn't great, but he did come through. I pointed out to him that if he'd kept his head under that pillow, he'd still be there. Now he could get on with his day.

Three weeks later, he passed his staffing in front of the doctor and the rest of the team. Dr. Ditz was not in attendance, but the psychiatrist assured me that we had more than enough to send this kid back. I went to tell him.

“Joey, you passed. You did it. Now, let's be real, you know you could get some time over this, its normal to be nervous or scared. But you better not backpedal and start “forgetting” s**t, or you'll get that malingering label, and then you'll be fucked. Just play it straight, and you'll have your best chance.”

“Mr. Rob, I'm sick of this over my head. I want out of here and I want to get this over with. I'll be straight.”

Lois and I went to lunch. When we got back to the building, I went to the control room to check in. The control board operator told me that Joey had slid some paper under my door during lunch. I went to my office and checked.

I wasn't expecting a thank you card, so I was not disappointed. I was shocked, however, because that was exactly what it was. He had gone to the canteen before it closed for lunch, used his own account to buy me a card, and wrote me a note inside:

“Mr. Rob,

Thank you for pushing me and not giving up on me. Nobody ever did that before.

Joey

p.s. Thanks to Lois, too!”

Author's Note

see Intro to The Nuthouse Stories for setup