Responding to Serious Behavioral Health Symptoms in the Courtroom: The Role of Each Court Partner

Brought to you by SAMHSA:

Date & Time
May 7, 2026 12:00 PM in
Pacific Time (US and Canada)
Description
Maintaining court procedures and ensuring procedural fairness can be difficult if a defendant is experiencing serious symptoms stemming from behavioral health disorders in the courtroom. Interactions in the courtroom related to mental and substance use disorders, including psychosis, suicidal ideation, or severe anxiety, can result in delays, appeals, or aggression towards court staff. Maintaining a safe courtroom environment requires courtroom professionals to understand approaches and tools that support person-centered and trauma-informed responses.

This webinar will discuss ways judges and other court partners, including defense attorneys and prosecutors, can manage serious symptoms of mental and substance use disorders that can show up in the courtroom while navigating their non-clinical, judicial role. Additionally, other court partners, such as court security personnel or behavioral health providers, may play key roles. This webinar will review practical strategies that support trauma-informed and coordinated responses among court partners.

Speakers
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Marcia Hirsch

Former Presiding Judge·Queens Treatment Court

Hon. Marcia P. Hirsch was the Presiding Judge of the Queens Drug Treatment Court, the DWI Treatment Court, the Mental Health Court, the Veterans Court, the Gun Diversion Part, and the Drug Diversion Court. She was appointed to the New York Court of Claims in March 2005 and was assigned to Queens Supreme Court, Criminal Term. She presided over hearings and trials before she was assigned to the therapeutic courts in October 2005 where she remained until her retirement in December 2024.

Judge Hirsch has lectured extensively on therapeutic justice, treatment courts, trauma-informed courts, and procedural justice. She has provided technical assistance to treatment court teams, law enforcement, behavioral health professionals working with justice populations, and more. She is a board member and the immediate past president of the New York Association of Treatment Court Professionals.

Judge Hirsch is a graduate of Union College and Syracuse University College of Law. She served for nine years on the Rockville Centre School Board and was a member of her community’s Drug & Alcohol Task Force. Prior to taking the bench, Judge Hirsch was the General Counsel and Deputy Commissioner at the New York State Division of Housing & Community Renewal.

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Jennifer Johnson

Founder and Principal·J.K. Johnson Advisors

Jennifer Johnson is the founder and principal of J.K. Johnson Advisors and provides education, consulting, and technical assistance at the intersection of mental health and law. Ms. Johnson is a 20-year veteran of the San Francisco Public Defender’s office, where she was one of the founders of San Francisco’s Behavioral Health Court.

In addition to her work in the courtroom, Ms. Johnson has helped shape mental health and criminal justice policy at the local, state, and national levels. She was a cofounder of the San Francisco Police Department’s Crisis Intervention Team Training in 2011. She is a Senior Consultant with SAMHSA’s GAINS Center for Behavioral Health and Justice Transformation, and she is a member of the Criminal Justice Advisory Panel for the Arc’s National Center on Criminal Justice and Disability.

Ms. Johnson recently authored a chapter on mental health courts in the American Bar Association publication, Representing People with Mental Disabilities: A Criminal Defense Lawyer’s Best Practices Manual. Other publications include: Burn Out and Compassion Fatigue: What Lawyers Need to Know, UMKC Law Review, Vol. 84:4 (Summer 2016) and Justice that Heals: Promoting.

“Therapeutic Court Association of Washington is sharing this event for informational purposes only and is not affiliated with, endorsing, or sponsoring the event.”