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20 Seattle J. Soc. Just. 159 (2021-2022)
Race, Mental Illness, and Restorative Justice: An Intersectional Approach to More Inclusive Practices

handle is hein.journals/sjsj20 and id is 159 raw text is: 159 Race, Mental Illness, and Restorative Justice: An Intersectional Approach to More Inclusive Practices Sabah H. Muhammad* and J. Michael E. Gray** L INTRODUCTION In the summer of 2019, a Black man faced trespassing charges in Georgia. The facts of the case were not entirely about the trespassing offense because the defendant had been belligerent with everyone who came near him from the moment of his first contact with police. The court assigned a public defender, and from her first meeting with her client, she knew why he committed the offense and why he had been belligerent with police, corrections officers, and nurses at the jail. Her client was shoeless, he had open wounds on his feet, and his eyes focused on something both distant and within himself. She knew those eyes, and she knew what they meant. Law school had not prepared her for the systemic injustices that were to come, but her lived experiences had. The attorney's brother is also a Black man with severe mental illness (SMI) who has faced serious criminal charges. She understood what other stakeholders in the criminal justice system did not-from the wounds on her client's feet, to the seemingly inexplicable * Sabah H. Muhammad is Legislative & Policy Counsel at the Treatment Advocacy Center and the DJ Jaffe Advocate. She is a licensed Georgia Attorney and holds a J.D. from the Florida A&M University College of Law. She is a former public defender and the story in the opening paragraphs is based on her personal family experience and a case she encountered while practicing in Georgia. ** J. Michael E. Gray is Legislative & Policy Counsel at the Treatment Advocacy Center. He holds a J.D. from the Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville and has taught political science at Simmons College of Kentucky. The authors thank Lisa Dailey and Elizabeth Sinclair Hancq for their support and their general wealth of knowledge on the law and policy discussed in this article, as well as J. Anthony Cash, a Kentucky prosecutor, for his help. We also thank our families for their infinite patience and support.