Ben Miller

Opinion contributor

In July 2018, a Massachusetts man in his 50s tried to kill himself in his backyard using his fiancee’s gun. He survived, but that was just the beginning of his ordeal. The local district attorney’s office decided to devote its resources to charging him with a litany of offenses, and spent the next year and a half fighting to keep him incarcerated, as documented in a recent article in The Appeal.

This is far from an isolated example of a prosecutor’s response to a person’s attempt at suicide. But the public should expect far more empathy, understanding and compassion from a local office charged with protecting the entire community, even those suffering with mental health and substance abuse issues.

Prosecutors — the most powerful actors in the criminal legal system — get to decide what, if any, charges to pursue. And their positions on issues such as bail, pretrial detention and sentencing often frame a court’s decisions. Yet too often, prosecutors wield their discretion without any consideration to the negative effects that frequently flow from those decisions.

In Massachusetts, the Norfolk District Attorney’s Office decided to focus, in part, on this man't criminal history, thereby ignoring the fact that he was in crisis. In the months before the incident, he had been unable to find employment. He said he decided to kill himself after ingesting a number of pills. He had not harmed or attempted to harm anyone but himself. He needed our help. Instead, he was sent to the local jail, perhaps the single worst place to send a person who has attempted suicide.

The suicide rate in local jails is more than five times the rate found in prison, making suicide the No. 1 killer for local inmates. More than half of all people who kill themselves in jail do so within the first week of incarceration and 80% do so while awaiting trial. Attempts at self-harm are also quite common in jail, especially when the person is suffering with a mental health issue.

The National Institute of Mental Health provides detailed guidance for helping people who might be at risk of harming themselves. Unsurprisingly, none of its solutions involves arresting, prosecuting or jailing the individual.

In this case, the prosecution seemed indifferent to these realities. It decided to present the case to a grand jury, secured a laundry list of charges and made arguments that led to him initially being jailed for over a month before his attorney secured his release.

When he again attempted suicide, the prosecution cruelly responded by having him sent back to jail.

And even after he found treatment and obtained a job and the jury returned only a single guilty verdict on a lesser offense, the prosecution still wanted him sent back to jail. He was looking at two years of incarceration with three years of probation tacked on the end. But with a suspended sentence and time served, he didn't spend any extra time incarcerated.

Even in hindsight, the district attorney’s office stood by its choice to use its discretion to prosecute and heap additional pain and punishment upon an already vulnerable individual. Prosecutors did not have to take any of these steps and the decisions they made did not benefit this man.

Instead, they placed additional obstacles in his path to recovery. Their choices did not help the community and, if anything, caused harm by diverting time and resources that could have gone toward more serious cases or programs that actually promote safety.

And prosecutors' actions sent a chilling message to anyone else who may be considering calling 911 if a loved one with a criminal record attempts suicide.

This case is indicative of the misguided belief among many prosecutors around the country that they must prosecute a person just because they can. As this case should make clear, these decisions to wield the legal system against people who are suffering with mental health or substance abuse issues often do nothing to provide justice based on any definition of the word.

Fortunately, it appears this man survived the ordeal the district attorney’s office put him through. Perhaps this case can now serve as an example to other prosecutors in how to better use their discretion and a reminder that the best solutions often have nothing to do with the criminal legal system.

Ben Miller is a senior legal counsel at the Justice Collaborative, a nonprofit organization working to reform the criminal legal system.