MI- Courts, prisons fail in treatment, intervention for mentally disordered

5-18-2008 Michigan:

IONIA -- Terry Casha's fate, the path that led him to a prison cell in Ionia, likely was determined before he was born.

He came into the world weighing a little more than 2 pounds and was not expected to live. His twin sister died a few months later with extensive brain damage.

He went from the hospital to foster care, then was adopted by parents who nurtured him and loved him the same as they did their six biological children. But whatever care they gave him was not enough to overcome the burden inflicted on him by his birth mother, an alcoholic who drank throughout her pregnancy.

Other Michigan inmates, such as Chad Childers, whose medicine to control paranoid schizophrenia was taken away, represent persistent claims that mental illnesses do not get proper treatment in prison. Terry Casha's story, however, shows other parts of the justice system also can be blind to the disorders.

For his first 18 years, Casha stayed out of trouble, followed the rules. Only after he graduated and went out on his own did the trouble begin. He couldn't hold a job. He lost his apartment and ended up living in the missions and on the streets of Grand Rapids. He had minor brushes with the law -- driving on a suspended license, urinating in public -- then the major one that landed him in prison.

He has been told he has fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, the umbrella term for a range of disabilities, but he can't describe how it affects him.

"I just am what I am," he said, sitting in a small room in the Bellamy Creek Correctional Facility, while a couple of guards watched from beyond two thick panes of glass. "From what I'm understanding about the disease, it is bad. It's kind of hard for me to describe it. It's just something I got to live with, basically."

He's 32 but has the emotional development of a person perhaps half his age. Those who suffer from the disorder need supervision and structure, a routine, to keep them from getting in trouble, experts say.

No one knows how many of the 51,000 inmates in Michigan's prisons suffered brain damage due to prenatal alcohol exposure, but a University of Washington study found half of those with the disorder end up in prisons or mental institutions.

Yet few states recognize fetal alcohol as a mitigating factor in criminal cases, and Michigan's prisons offer no programs to treat it.

That's why Kathryn Kelly recently came to Grand Rapids. She is a project director in the University of Washington's Fetal Alcohol and Drug Unit, the only program in the country that tries to help people with fetal alcohol disorders stay out of trouble.

She met with Kent County District Court officials to discuss creating a similar program in Grand Rapids.

A downward spiral

Terry Casha did not begin speaking until he was nearly 4 years old. He attended special education classes in St. Clair Shores, where the family lived. As a teen, he came to live with his brother Jerry in Wyoming, attended Wyoming Park High School, then graduated from Allendale High School.

Jerry taught him welding, hired him to work in his shop, but fired him for continually failing to show up for work, a pattern that repeated itself as his life began a downward spiral of lost jobs and minor scrapes with the law.

"I don't think he understands the consequences for what he's doing," Jerry said recently. "I could never explain to him, 'Terry, you can't go out and drive if you don't have a driver's license.' He doesn't understand it. He thinks for the moment."

With no income, Terry was evicted from his apartment and ended up living in the Guiding Light and Mel Trotter missions in Grand Rapids.

In 2003, in a mosh pit at a concert in Rosa Parks Circle, he touched a young woman's breast. When a police officer tried to arrest him, Terry ran. He was tackled and charged with criminal sexual conduct and assault for resisting arrest.

He pleaded guilty to fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct, a misdemeanor, and was placed on the state's sex offender list. When the people at Mel Trotter learned he was on the list, they kicked him out, since under state law, no registered sex offenders may live within 1,000 feet of a school. With Catholic Central High in the neighborhood, the Guiding Light also was off limits.

So he lived on the streets, then moved in with a friend -- or a man he thought was a friend -- at a house in Cascade Township. His housemate once dumped an ashtray in his mouth while he slept, poured urine in his ear and pushed him down the stairs, but Casha never fought back.

At a party in that neighborhood, he met a girl, and a few days later, April 1, 2006, they walked together to a store to buy liquor and cigarettes. What happened next is in dispute. She said he raped her. He said she seduced him.

When her parents found out, they came to the house, dragged Casha onto the porch and beat him. The police arrested him, charging him with first-degree criminal sexual conduct. Casha admitted he had sex with the girl, but he insisted it was consensual.

Legally, it was irrelevant whether she consented or was forcibly raped. The fact she was two months short of her 16th birthday made it a crime. Casha insisted he thought she was much older, and five people signed affidavits saying the girl was sexually promiscuous with older men and often lied about her age.

A plea for leniency

Despite that, Casha pleaded guilty to third-degree criminal sexual conduct -- having sex with a minor -- and thought he'd get off with a short jail term. At his sentencing last October, his attorney pleaded for leniency and submitted a report by a psychologist who warned that Casha could be easily victimized in prison.

"A very high level adult foster care situation may, in fact, be appropriate for Terry," the psychologist wrote. But Kent County Circuit Judge Donald Johnston sentenced him to 7-15 years.

"If fetal alcohol syndrome causes Mr. Casha to commit crimes of this sort, then, clearly, he needs to be institutionalized," he said. "If he's out and about under his own power, then he has to be held responsible by the same standards as anyone else."

Some months later, Johnston said state law gave him no choice, and Michigan has no facility for people with the disorder.

"Unfortunately, the only structured environment we have is the Michigan Department of Corrections," he said, but added: "Between you and me and the lamp post, I don't know too many people who get better in prison."

A mother's anguish

Anna Casha never thought she'd visit one of her children in prison. At 81, she dreaded it, but came anyway from her home in Bloomfield Hills to Bellamy Creek.

Inside the prison, she and two of her other sons, Jim and Jerry, were patted down and removed their shoes and socks to prove they were not smuggling in drugs. After a long wait, they sat across from Terry in a room filled with other visitors and inmates.

"It tears me apart," Anna said, especially the children who come to visit their fathers. "They're all in the same boat."

Her anguish is multiplied by two. Anna and her husband raised their six biological children and took in 15 foster kids, adopting two of them. Her biological children all have stable lives and careers. Her two adopted sons, Terry and Billy, both went to prison. She knows less about Billy's prenatal care, but suspects he, too, has fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. He has done two terms for stealing and domestic abuse.

"I worry a lot," Anna Casha said. "I pray when I open my eyes in the morning and when I go to bed at night. The thing is, they're not bad kids. They are good kids. They are sick. I never stopped loving them, and I will love them until the day I close my eyes, because they are mine."

A hope for freedom

For Jim Casha, a civil engineer who lives in Virginia, winning Terry's freedom is an obsession. He writes letters, makes phone calls, sends faxes and e-mails to anyone he believes can help.

When Terry was 3 or 4 years old, he fell into the family's backyard pool. Jim, then in his early 20s, dived in and saved him. When Jim was 25, he promised their mother he'd always look after Terry.

For a while, Terry lived with Jim and his wife, but, when Terry's drinking caused tension in the family, they asked him to leave.

"My God, what have I done?" Jim said, the day before visiting his brother in prison.

"Why didn't I help him? I knew he could not handle his own affairs. I should have been more diligent in making sure he had what he needed. He needs a group home, someone to manage his affairs"

Terry said he appreciates his family's concern, but he expects he will spend many more years in prison. He won't have his first parole hearing for five years. He has heard the parole board doesn't release most sex offenders until they have served the maximum.

"I'm gonna do 15 years," he said. "When I get out, I gotta worry about my neighbors, because I'm a sex offender. They can burn down my house, and I can't even have a gun to protect myself.

"Who's gonna hire me? Who's gonna rent me a house? Who?" ..more.. by Pat Shellenbarger | The Grand Rapids Press