Court today....

It's been a good spell since I last posted. Hard to get "down time" on the puter. Our 2nd puter crapped out and CJ needs this for school, I do too, so it tkaes up alot of time. Thankfully my guru hubby has set up a second computer while the other one is being repaired!

CJ had court today. Yesterday the public defender and a social worker came out to our home to meet us and interview CJ. This is not normal at all. Today the lawyer told me the purpose of that meeting was to evaluate our home and our family to ascertain whether or not he is in a good environment and with folks that are capable of caring for him. Thankfully, we passed muster. This opened up a new possibility for CJ. The lawyer is thinking there are still competency issues, and of course there are. CJ is not competent and is unlikely to ever be deemed competent enough to understand the charges pending against him let alone stand trial for the charges. Normally what happens in this kind of case is that the mentally ill person is remanded to a state institution, in our area, Elgin or Rockford, until competence can be regained. In other words, they could send a boy of 18, with a mentality of 10, to a state institution for criminally insane individuals for life. He offered up a different approach today. He said that we would likely still need to pursue competency issues. CJ cannot plead the charges down because again, he does not understand what he is pleading to, so we cannot even entertain this route. The lawyer found a law somewhere in Illinois that states that the least restrictive environment must be entertained based on the ill individuals needs. He and the social worker feel that our home is this environment. It is the least restrictive and "staffed" with professional and laypeople well equipped to deal with CJ's needs. He would like to see if there is anyway we could do the competency on an outpatient basis!! It's not perfect, but with the imperfect system we have to work within, it is more perfect than I can describe. Our next court date is April 8th and we will know more from there. Both sides are still reviewing CJ's extensive medical records and it takes a good amount of time to look at over 9 years of illness/school records/evals, etc. For the immediate time, CJ stays with us for at least another month. Now I need to work on his medical card coming to our address and his social security payments coming to him. Hopefully his doc will sign off on the guardianship petitions soon, it will help him if I am able to legally advocate on his behalf instead of standing on the sidelines and screaming. Behaviorally, CJ has been doing really well. No signs or symptoms of psychosis and he seems pretty well adjusted. He has earned a couple of the school credits he needs for graduation and has a couple more to go. It looks like we can look forward to a triple graduation this year. My husband with his son graduating from college, CJ from high school, and Mick from Jr. high. We have something to look forward too!