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YOUNGSTOWN -- A special court docket for military veterans will continue with the aid of opioid settlement funds.
Mahoning County commissioners last week allocated $100,000 in opioid settlement dollars to the Veterans Felony Honor Court program operated by Mahoning County Common Pleas Court Judge Anthony D'Apolito. D'Apolito took over the docket from its founder, Judge Shirley Christian, shortly after it began in 2016.
In the 10 years it has operated, D'Apolito said, the program has graduated more than 50 defendants with military backgrounds and helped others. The docket's third recertification from the Ohio Supreme Court arrived in D'Apolito's office Tuesday morning.
When he first took over the bench in that courtroom, D'Apolito was not sure he wanted to maintain the docket, thinking that the county's drug and mental health dockets would be sufficient. Program director Derick Young convinced him otherwise, and D'Apolito said he is grateful for it.
"Veterans have gone through things civilians can't begin to understand," he said. "There's also an expectation they have for each other. If a civilian group is in charge of looking after a vet, there's not going to be that buy-in. But if vets do it, there's an accountability and respect that only vets can give each other."
D'Apolito said the accountability and the rapport between veterans makes all the difference.
"There's something a vet can provide that others just cannot. I don't know that the veterans would have gotten the help they had -- there's an accountability that they are held to here that they wouldn't have had with the other dockets."
The program is mostly for felony offenders and involves four phases that can take anywhere from one to two years to complete.
Once they are screened at the Mahoning County jail, professionals are able to assess their condition and their struggles and identify what services and resources they need.
Each vet is assigned a mentor, and all mentors are also veterans.
"Some mentors were in the program, and they really understand the vet," D'Apolito said. "I love that they come back to serve this team. They're not done with their service just because they're not in the military. They find a way to do that by being part of this honor court."
D'Apolito said most of the defendants who come through the program are involved with either substance abuse or some degree of low- to mid-level violence.
"The vets we have, when I learn more and more about what they have gone through in their lives and service, I'm almost more surprised if they don't turn to some substance," D'Apolito said.
"What brings people to this docket, very often, is that when someone is trained in the military they are changed, and they have to be. They have to go from 0 to 100 in a couple seconds to protect civilians, their fellow soldiers, themselves. That works great in service, but when they come back it's not so great," he said. "They lose their temper, lose control of their impulses."
While domestic violence or garden-variety assault cases are common, D'Apolito said it's rare to see crimes like robbery or burglary. He also stated unequivocally that the Veterans Honor Court does not accept sex crime cases.
Most of the time, he said, veterans are making bad decisions from a place of great pain.
"They don't mean to cause that harm," he said. "I'm trying to help them escape this trauma that caused them to do something that hurt someone else, and if the victim is OK with it I'm going to try to help them."
Compassion for the defendant is something D'Apolito tries to apply to every case he handles, on this docket or any other. It's a matter of what best serves the public interest, he said.
"You have sympathy, and you may understand why they got there, and sometimes I can take that into consideration, but sometimes the harm, they caused overrides that, and I have to protect the public. I have to punish them," he said. "I don't want anyone to get hurt because of a decision I made, but I want to help these people because I come to know what they went through. And those are the competing interests I usually serve."
It can be a difficult needle to thread.
"Someone, recently, was driving drunk and hit a woman. She has a hard time walking now. I wasn't going to accept the case (for Veterans Court), but she said no, she wanted this person to have help and she came to court. It touched me greatly the grace she gave him. I told him I'd probably be harder on him than most others because, and I told him: 'You got a real gift with this victim, and the grace she's giving you.'"
D'Apolito said he warns defendants that the program will not be an easy way out.
"This is going to be harder than just pleading and getting on with life," he said. "I tell them two things: the first is trust the team, they're here to help you. The second is don't lie to me. I can't help if you deceive me, and if there's no trust you can't get better."
D'Apolito said the cases take time, but they are a wise investment.
"It would be more efficient if we just pleaded them out. But that wouldn't be serving them well, it'd be setting them up for future trouble," he said. "It's about dealing with the 'Why' instead of the 'What.'"
D'Apolito said getting vets into the program and getting them in a treatment environment where they are surrounded and supported by people they feel they can trust go a long way toward getting them to open up.
Often, it's about much more than just what they encountered in combat.
"They brought trauma from childhood, from combat, from returning and trying to reintegrate," he said. "There's so many more layers with veterans. They don't want to talk about it. To talk about it hurts. It's a deeper dig. You have to invest more time but you're going to save a lot on the back end, save more harm, save more cost. You end up with fewer victims."
Those who do graduate will have their record expunged at the end of the program, as long as they came to the court from Mahoning County's regular docket on a felony charge. D'Apolito said he will welcome veterans from other counties, and even misdemeanor cases, but those defendants will not have their records expunged. Instead, the Honor Court program is considered part of their probationary requirements with the outside court.
The final phase of the program, D'Apolito said, is returning the veteran to the world on their own recognizance -- but with the understanding that they should always reach back out to the court or their mentor if they ever feel like they need help.
The county budget has never been a funding source for the docket. Instead it's supported by donations and grants. D'Apolito said the docket's federal grant just ran out and the court will have to reapply next year. The $100,000 in opioid settlement funds will get the program through until next year, he said.
The $60,000 approved Thursday comes from Mahoning County's share of the more than $1 billion Ohio is expected to receive through nationwide opioid settlements with manufacturers, distributors and pharmacies. Mahoning County expects to receive at least $7.4 million over 15 years.