Hurray for Judge Sol Wachtler ("Judging a judge less harshly," April 28). The man is truly a foremost legal scholar and an impassioned advocate for veterans and people with a mental illness who are caught up in the justice system. I must believe that his scholarship, time on the bench and his advocacy work will be his legacy, not his brief life as a miscreant.
I had the privilege of working with Judge Wachtler to pass in 2008 the Special Housing Unit Exclusion Law, which provides a treatment alternative to long-term solitary confinement for seriously mentally ill inmates who misbehave. Solitary confinement can be veritable torture for many such persons.
As one might imagine, Judge Wachtler was eloquent and persuasive, drawing on his own personal experience in his advocacy efforts.
Unfortunately, far too many people with serious mental illness continue to be imprisoned for crimes they would not have committed if there was accessible mental health treatment in the community and if the stigma of mental illness did not haunt those in need of treatment.
Being the mensch he is, Judge Wachtler has always taken full responsibility for his criminal behavior, which landed him in federal prison. But, honestly, for those who know him and who understand untreated or poorly treated bipolar disorder, which was clearly the condition in which Judge Wachtler found himself some years ago, there can be precious few who believe he would have acted as he did if he was otherwise healthy.
Robert K. Corliss
coordinator of
forensic services,
National Alliance on Mental Illness of Schenectady
Schenectady