Pirate's Cove

This is the liberal mentality: people shouldn’t be in jail for committing multiple, often violent, crimes. And so many of those who say it are surrounded by armed security or live away from where the violence is. Until they aren’t

Josh Stein says ‘jail is not the right place.’ Right now, it is | Opinion

The United States is a nation of laws. That’s a beautiful thing worth protecting.

But it also means we’re a nation of lawyers. That’s not an insult, despite the easy joke. I have a lot of respect for legal practitioners.

Still, there’s a downside to living inside a culture of process. When the rules get complicated enough, common sense starts to sound like an amateur opinion, and the rest of us are left living with the consequences while being told we simply do not understand.

That is what North Carolina is wrestling with after the killing of Raleigh teacher Zoe Welsh. Once again, we are staring at a high-profile homicide involving a suspect with a long rap sheet and a long history of mental health problems. Once again, the public is asking questions the system has no good answer for.

Zoe was killed earlier in the month in her nice neighborhood in Raleigh

Lawyers could spend hours explaining why Welsh’s alleged killer was out on the streets. In fact, they already have. They’ll cite Supreme Court decisions, constitutional limits, and fine print. They’ll tell you “incompetent” isn’t the same as “committable” under the proper justiciable standards.

They might be right on every technical point. The outcome would still be indefensible.

Because common sense says that if a court has decided someone is not competent to stand trial, he’s not competent to be roaming around the public freely.

Especially when they have a long, long rap sheet. Camacho has been arrested over 20 times, and had done a stint in jail, but, was let out to continue committing crimes.

Gov. Josh Stein responded to Welsh’s death with a familiar line. He said that the system needs to do better, but that jail is not the right place for people in mental-health crises.

In an ideal world, he is right. The best answer is a secure psychiatric setting with serious doctors, fast evaluations, and a clear path to get the person healthy enough so the case can go back to court.

We should invest in that world, building more inpatient hospitals, hiring more evaluators and all the rest of it.

Democrats, and to a degree Republicans, have long ignore the need for mental health facilities. They keep closing them, and allow crazy people to wander around causing problems. Then they kill someone and Democrats are like “how did this happen!”

But as a state, we’ve allowed “incompetent to proceed” to become a magic phrase that dissolves all accountability. Even a layman can see that’s not workable.

So here is the rule North Carolina should adopt for cases like this. If a judge says someone is not competent for trial, that person does not go back on the street. He stays in custody until the court decides where he will be treated and what has to happen before the case can move forward. Not a shrug and a release because the system lacks a clean box.

Most of these types of laws and rules that muddle the whole justice system happen in Democrat run cities full of majority Democrats. Why do they want to deal with crime and not punish it? This is how we get nutters like this