By Terry Greene Sterling | Dec. 4, 2019

Adrian Perez hobbles into the courtroom in leg chains and jail slippers. He sits. He pokes at his black beard. He rocks.

He’s 34 years old, and he knows he has schizophrenia. He knows he hears voices no one else can hear.

He wants to get better but he doesn’t know how to get better.

Instead, he cycles in and out of the Cochise County justice system. He’s been locked up in the county jail at least 16 times in 13 years. He’s been charged with misdemeanors like shoplifting or disturbing the peace, which are handled in justice court, and he’s also been charged with two felonies in Cochise County Superior Court. One case, in which he took a neighbor’s truck for a joyride, was dropped because of Adrian’s mental illness. Today he’s facing a second felony charge for allegedly stealing an auto part.

This time around, he’s been isolated in solitary confinement in the jail for 23 hours a day for close to two months. There is no doubt, his family says, that solitary is making Adrian sicker.

Confining people with serious mental illness (often shortened to SMI) in jailhouse solitary cells has been repeatedly identified by correctional officials, advocates and psychiatrists as detrimental and cruel. But because there’s no aggregate reporting system in place no one knows exactly how many people with mental illness are confined to jailhouse solitary cells – or for how long. And in many county jails the practice persists.

Adrian welcomes court hearings because they get him out of solitary. On this September morning, Adrian is in Cochise County Superior Court, charged with stealing a device that measures the working speed of an engine, called a tachometer, from an auto parts store. The tachometer cost $112.29. Adrian sold it for five bucks to buy cigarettes. He is charged with trafficking in stolen property.

Because Adrian has been found incompetent by psychiatrists to stand trial due to his mental illness, Judge Tim Dickerson might later drop the auto part case. But first the lawyers have to file papers and the judge has to issue rulings. That could take weeks.

The art-deco style court building is nearly a century old. The courtroom has tall, geometric windows and rows of small, uncomfortable chairs. Adrian stands behind a wooden podium with his public defender and addresses the judge.

“I want to get help as soon as I can,” Adrian says.

A white-bearded bailiff ushers Adrian out of the courtroom. Adrian’s accustomed to walking in shackles, but he’s lost a lot of weight lately and yanks up his baggy red-and-white-striped pants with his cuffed hands, which gives him a lopsided gait.

In a few hours, he’ll be back in solitary at the Cochise County jail, getting sicker.