Special Courts for Veterans Languish
There’s little money and apparently little demand.
Eric Gonzalez says he doesn’t remember getting pulled over, nor does he remember evading his arrest in Fullerton, California. The only thing he knows is that he woke up very hungover and faced up to nine years in prison for assaulting a police officer, along with five other charges.
Gonzalez, however, was on active duty in the U.S. Marine Corps when he was arrested in 2012, and thus eligible for an alternative: a veterans treatment court that helps service members charged with misdemeanors and some felonies avoid incarceration, if the crime is related to a mental health issue or drug dependency.
For nearly a year in the veterans treatment court program he went to therapy,
