Judge Ginger Lerner-Wren Broward Mental Health Court

September 1, 2001

Judge Ginger Lerner-Wren
Broward Mental Health Court
600 South Andrews Street
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida 33301

RE: Disabled man story in today’s Herald

Judge Lerner-Wren:

“Man slept
in yard for
five years”

Irate judge orders
state to provide aid
The Herald
Page one
Today

I read the above mentioned story in absolute awe. Synapses were shutting down with each sentence.

Darren Cooper slept outside his mother’s house for five years? Give him credit
for picking Ft. Lauderdale, Florida rather than Winona, Minnesota. If you are homeless and “mentally challenged” it’s better to spend Valentine’s Day here rather than there. It calls to mind the judge in Paris who said, “The rich and the poor have an equal right to sleep under the bridges over the Seine. The rich in the summer; the poor in the winter”.

I missed the announcement of the creation of the “Mental Health Court”. Is there a sub-section for neuroses? Psychoses? Do obsessions get the court’s attention? Are the court personnel on Prozac? How about you? Are you OK? Do you have some “white rabbits” to get you through motion day?

May I ask what role his mother played in all this? Is she negligent? Is she unfit?
I assume that Mr. Cooper was born thus. I don’t think second hand smoke or a high student/teacher ratio caused that wily chromosome to jump the double helix track. Is this woman also a victim of the things that modern American Liberalism strives so mightily to defeat? Mom lets her son howl at the moon for five years and you bellow at some poor weenie bureaucrat because the agency didn’t have a small suite with room service plus an increase in your self esteem and your net worth program available around the clock for Mr. Cooper? God’s Holy Trousers but the inmates are running the asylum!

May I offer a possible solution to what will be a continuing problem. Since you alone feel that you have the vision, the calling, everyone entering your court will do so at his peril. I have no doubt that by New Year’s Day you will be ordering the floggings of any social worker who dares look cross eyed at you.

Accept on faith when I tell you that there is not enough money anywhere to meet all the needs of society. Spare me the claptrap about how one less B-1 bomber will have all the less fortunate farting through silk. Each afflicted group will have articulate advocates demanding that their particular “need” will go to the head of the line. They will seek out friendly judicial ears to plead their cause. Since Judges seem to think that they can make leaves stay on trees by simply ordering them to do so you will be tugged at and pulled at constantly. It will become like the horizon. Try as you will you will never quite get there. There will always be one more cup, empty and upturned, whose bearer will say to you with plaintive eyes, “More”.

Each group will say one thing similar. “Don’t take from one group to make mine whole - unless there is no other choice. Give more to all the groups.” These groups, whose livelihoods depend on some form of human affliction, will seek out black robed boobs - such as you - for some surcease from the travails of an uncaring society. The problem of more dogs than bones and the problems when the dinner bell is rung has been with us a long time. Nothing you can say or do is going to cure that. I suppose we could try the hugely successful Cuban or Romanian models for dealing with that problem but that’s a different story.

One solution would have been for you to have brought Darren Cooper home. I think the picture on page one is probably more out of focus than he is but he seems rather docile. Having lived in his mother’s back yard for 5 years he should be familiar with the local flora and fauna. Perhaps some light yard work might lessen the burden of you taking care of him. Some environmentally sensitive weed whacking and pest control could prove to be a Godsend. Of course, if something goes askance then we can have those hapless bureaucrats whom you delight in seeing how tight you make them make their sphincters have a shot at you. That will keep you on your toes and show your support for the separation of powers.

At least fickle Fortuna landed victim Cooper in Florida. Had he been in Arkansas when Hillary’s husband was running for President he could have wound up like Ricky Ray Rector. You remember him, don’t you? Despite having an IQ just barely above a bucket of clams Big Bill had him wired up to Ole Sparky whereupon Hillary gave him a lap dance to keep him quiescent to prove that he was tough on crime. That’s one guy whose pain he didn’t feel.

“How small, of all that human hearts endure,
That part which laws or kings can cause or cure.”

Keep up the good work. It should be a snap for you. You’re gaining on it, sweetie.



KEVIN SMITH