In my youth that someone would come along and reform the immigration status. I may not see it myself the way its going. Just moving to the next question for maurice. Did you feel discouraged in your fight for innocence when you were incarcerated and did you feel like it was you against the system . Yes. I felt that, you know from day one. Because its like, even going through trial, it was like i felt that i had no way, story, even if my story was true, there was no way. My character, from where i was from, it was like, im already guilty. So for intimidation, i didnt feel intimidated. I always like i said, the hope i had from one end, it deteriorated from me even losing faith from the system and the police arresting me. The lawyers were the ones that helped me get out and the same people that i needed to help me get out were the ones that i was like mad at. So mad, my madness made me fight. So i stayed fighting but i never felt like it was going to be over. I got a niece that is 23 year
Francisco chief of police. Gary is a psychiatrist and lauras law advocate and eduardo vega the Mental Health association of San Francisco. Let me start by opposing a question to karen chen from the public defenders office. Karen, can you how about if you start by giving us an overview of how the city handles this conflict between treatment and Civil Liberties. An involuntary hold starts in San Francisco when a peace officer or a clinician makes the determination that the person is due to a mental disorder, is a danger to others or danger to self or gravely disabled. Gravely disabled means that person does not have the ability to provide for basic needs such as food, clothing and shelter. And the legal representation starts in most cases the first 3 days of the involuntary hold during the initial psychiatric evaluation and then the legal representation also continues with if the person is asked to be stayed or referred for further treatment up to 14 days. During this phase, the attorney
Because im talking about lives. I dont think, im just, you know, its very hard and we knew nothing about Mental Illness about this, but i will not stop fighting for my son, i wont stop fighting for others and i am going to scream and shout and share until somebody hears. Thats all. [ applause ] thank you. Lets get another perspective on this from eduardo very big vega. You have been forthright to discussions about treatment and in your chronicle about lauras law that you think the need to help the vast majority of people who do want treatments. But arent there cases as we are hearing today that force treatment is necessary . Well, so i have been working in Mental Health field for about 22 years various places across the country. I have worked in crisis programs here and in new york city and pretty much ever phase of program there is. I have been a Suicide Prevention interventionist, i guess after this, the one thing i want to say that force is not treatment. One thing that we have lear
I know is fast to get in there, but when the wheels are turned to come home, its slow. I couldnt accept it. People are like they are going to do this to time. I said no, this is clear. This was what was supposed to have been done from the beginning. Even my families, my loved wupz ones that lost. That made me fight more. I never gate gave up my fate. My hope is restored. With that i would like to thank all of our panelist. Thank you. [ applause ] and we are now going to move to our second panel. While they take their seats, this idea of forced treatment versus Constitutional Rights has always been a tension that weve had in our criminal justice system. There is an issue that came up earlier this year that you may have read about involving this implementation of a court that was supposed to treat individuals who were suffering from longterm alcoholism. And the court was set up in a way where individuals were not being arrested for a crime but instead were being jailed for contempt of co
Our second panel. While they take their seats, this idea of forced treatment versus Constitutional Rights has always been a tension that weve had in our criminal justice system. There is an issue that came up earlier this year that you may have read about involving this implementation of a court that was supposed to treat individuals who were suffering from longterm alcoholism. And the court was set up in a way where individuals were not being arrested for a crime but instead were being jailed for contempt of court as long as 120150 days in jail. My office, when we learned of this, we were not involved in the creation of it, challenged it because we believed that it was unconstitutional because you were not charging people with crimes and you are jailing people for contempt of court when legally they hadnt failed to come to court because in most of these cases they had simply been served with citations. So the legal challenge is filed and the court was found to be unconstitutional by t