- Joined
- Jun 12, 2020
Yes they do have addiction court and also mental health court in some cases. PA has the “Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition” which is usually held for first time offenders for DUIs. Not that I want to PL, but my exceptional ex SIL got two DUIs back to back. If you get ARD and then say offend again in less than 24 months ARD is then off the table. You have to pay the fines and/or do jail time to boot if you fuck up. You can only do ARD once. It’s basically probabtion with auto-expungement at the end should you pay all your fines, do community service or whatever else is ordered of you.That’s not really evidence of anything in terms of PA.
Most places have therapeutic courts or diversion programs that allow similar outcomes. DUIs in particular can easily be sent to addiction treatment diversion programs and then successful treatment completion drastically reduces charges. I’ve seen some defendants have DUI assaults and serve no jail time and do outpatient only.
I doubt Russ would qualify for any such programs should they exist in whatever state he filed because 1) he doesn’t do drugs or drink 2) while he is a narc, unless there’s some kind of really disturbing psych eval to back it (to where he could get a gov’t tugboat) he wouldn’t qualify for MH court either. The people they select are barely functioning humans. Also what he is convicted of is a borderline violent offense so yeah no. He’s not going to get anything expunged.
Also, there’s some kind of sentencing matrix that happens within the courts that evaluates offenders based on past offenses. My bet would be that Russ’s shit that happened in HS isn’t factored in because he was a minor. But this new charge and any ones going forward will.
IANAL, I basically know the above because I had to navigate the court system with an abusive ex.