TRIAL & ERROR Watch the game show Florida uses to teach mental patients to be competent to stand trial

Every year, Florida spends $50 million holding nonviolent criminal defendants in mental hospitals. But the hospitals don’t try to treat their illnesses.

Instead, they give them medication and training for one purpose: to get them deemed competent to face their charges.

Some patients watch reruns of Law & Order. Others play parts in scripted mock trials, or become contestants in a courtroom version of Wheel of Fortune.

It’s all laid out in this state training video that some patients are required to watch while they are confined at the cost of more than $300 a day. Each time a patient watches the video, it costs roughly $8.