May 28, 2004

S.P. Homeless Court:
Punishment Should Fit Defendant
By Arthur R. Vinsel, Community News Reporter

     As a new judge, it struck Superior Court Judge Pete Mirich early on that the punishment should fit the defendant. 
     Otherwise, society itself is penalized. Such was the case with one particular homeless person, who cost the state hundreds of dollars to prosecute and jail for 72 hours. He had no money for the then-$100 fine, nor a permanent address or transportation that might make alternative community service an option. He lacked even that means to pay his debt to society. 
     Judge Mirich reluctantly sentenced the man to three days in jail, although he and a public defender tried to work out an alternative. To the convicted jaywalker, going behind bars seemed most expedient, all things considered. Translated into dollars and cents, the cost of feeding and housing, transporting and protecting any among Los Angeles’ estimated 84,000 homeless whose infractions have truly harmed no one is staggering. Was he a luckless young guy hooked on alcohol or drugs? Was he an old veteran of the hard and dirty streets? “He was just a middleaged man,” recalls Judge Mirich, sitting on a curb in Peppertree Plaza by the San Pedro Municipal Building at Sixth and Beacon streets, with courtrooms on the sixth floor. Two constituents— homeless men—lounged on the grass nearby. 
     “He just gathered cans and bottles for recycling. As it turned out, I ended up keeping his belongings for him in a courtroom closet. And when it was all over, I asked myself: What have we really accomplished here?” 
     “This was 13, 14 years ago. I had just been appointed to the bench,” says Judge Mirich, the instigator of the Harbor Area’s first branch of Los Angeles Homeless Court, which will convene in July of this year. “You can’t really pinpoint one specific thing that caused me to be the sparkplug for this, but I have always remembered the homeless defendant who came to court with all that he owned in the world, ready to go to jail,” Judge Mirich explains. 
     The idea is not a new one. The offenses are generally petty and sometimes purely technical. The annual savings to law enforcement and the justice administration systems could be immense. Judge Mirich reluctantly sentenced the man to three days in jail, although he and a public defender tried to work out an alternative. 
     “Homeless people are transients and so they may have other warrants and such cases pending in other jurisdictions. They don’t have $100 for the fine nor the means to do community service and all of this is costing hundreds of dollars. It’s killing us in the system,” remarked Judge Mirich.
     “Today, it costs the county $62.21 a day to keep a man or woman in jail,” says Judge Mirich. “Many of the homeless don’t show up in court. There are many reasons, both for that and their being homeless, an arrest warrant is issued. Add in the costs of that process and law enforcement time when they are picked up sooner or later, being processed into jail and then taken to court. Add the cost of a court-appointed attorney to represent them.”
     The Homeless Court concept originated in 1988 at a Veterans Stand Down event in San Diego. Homeless veterans at this brand-new type of outreach program could clear up minor offenses and arrest warrants with judges and lawyers who volunteered for the duty. Judge Mirich attended a Long Beach Stand Down in the early ’90s with a colleague, onetime San Pedran John McCann, a Vietnam veteran and former LAPD officer grievously injured on duty and who’d eventually become an attorney. 
     “Homelessness is pretty pronounced. Especially when you come to work Monday morning and find people camped out on the courthouse steps,” says Judge Mirich. “I don’t want to take credit for something that’s not mine. And I am certainly not ‘a liberal’ in that sense. Homeless Courts are simply the answer to many problems. They’re an idea whose time has come.”
     A decision has yet to be reached on whether the San Pedro Homeless Court’s jurisdiction will encompass Wilmington and Harbor City, but Judge Mirich noted officials in Long Beach courts have already asked if they might work out a deal to be included. A few people in Harbor Area alcohol and drug recovery programs who have qualified have already had cases resolved by traveling to downtown Los Angeles’ Homeless Court, where Judge Mirich says response in the legal community is positive and widespread.

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