The 15th-floor courtroom that was widely described as dingy and depressing during the Trump hush-money trial had considerably brightened on Wednesday, and it was not because those tawdry proceedings had ended in a conviction.
The venue was less dismal because the shades on the windows set high on one wall were no longer drawn, as they had been at the insistence of the Secret Service while the former president they are still sworn to protect was present.
Instead of Donald Trump, the defendant’s chair was occupied by a woman who had entered a program for defendants with a serious mental illness after pleading guilty to theft and assault. She had been scheduled to appear on the morning of May 29 for a monthly evaluation, but it was rescheduled because the Trump jury was deliberating. The jurors had returned early the following evening and repeated the word “guilty” 34 times while people in the packed courtroom strained to discern even the tiniest sign of Trump’s reaction.
The courtroom was now largely empty, but the 62-year-old jurist on the bench was the same. New York County Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan began by addressing this defendant just as he had the defendant in the hush-money case.
“Good morning,” Merchan said, substituting “Mr. Trump” with “Ms.” and a name The Daily Beast is withholding because she is a mental health patient. The tone was exactly the same.
“Good morning, your honor,” the defendant said.
“How are you doing?” Merchan asked.
“I’m feeling very well,” the defendant said. “Thank you. And you?”
“I’m good, I’m good,” Merchan replied. “Thank you.”
“Good to hear,” the defendant said.
The courtroom began to acquire an added brightness of another kind. The judge whom Trump had called a “devil” and “crooked” and “a tyrant” is in fact as close as New York City has to a hero on the bench, regularly bringing the light of fairness and empathy to Part 59M.
Merchan has been the presiding judge in Manhattan Mental Health Court since its inception 13 years ago. It convenes every Wednesday to provide what The New York State Office of Court Administration describes as “a comprehensive system of oversight and treatment to eligible defendants with mental illness.” He is not some reflexively permissive pushover; if you fail to live up to your commitments, you are liable to do more time than if you had never entered the program. He is assisted by Amber Petitt-Cifarelli, a resource coordinator who sits to his right. She says that many of the successful defendants share a motivation.
“They don’t want to disappoint the judge,” she said. “People feel really seen and heard by the judge and have a sense of fairness in the courtroom,” Petitt-Cifarelli told The Daily Beast.
The particular defendant on Wednesday morning entered the program in 2022 and has been appearing before Merchan for monthly updates ever since. Merchan did not need to consult a case folder to pose a question related to her personal progress.
“So, are you going to play some golf with your father?” Merchan asked.
“Hopefully soon,” the defendant said. “I have been playing since I was a kid, 4 years old.”
She turned out to share one passion with the famous defendant who had preceded her in the chair. She told Merchan that she sometimes goes to the city’s only 36-hole golf facility, in Pelham Bay Park in the Bronx.
“Just to get away,” she added. “Really clears the mind being out there. The greens, and just focusing on one ball and one hole. It’s really fun.”
“Agreed,” the judge said.
He circled her back to what promised to be even more healing for her.
“And I’m sure it would be great just to spend some time with your dad,” he said.
“Yes,” she replied.
“Tell me how you are feeling and how everything else is going,” Merchan then said, his interest unmistakably genuine.
“I am feeling well,” she replied. “I have been taking all my meds. Going to all my groups. Everything has been really great.”
She further reported that she had enrolled in something called the ACE Program.
“They help homeless people and people that have been incarcerated get job training,” she explained. “They do two days a week of classes and two days a week of working on the streets, picking up garbage for sanitation. And then you are given a stipend.”
She said that this seemed to be a good balance for her.
“Not too much that I’m biting off or not too much chewing,” she said. “Because I’m so used to overwhelming myself, your Honor… And then when I don’t do well or something falls through, I feel like a failure and I go back to my bad ways.”
She told the court that she had applied to the City University of New York for the fall semester.
“I have been looking into career options,” she said. “I am really serious about my future.”
She was also thinking of going into occupational therapy, she said.
“I think that that is a really good field,” she explained. “It’s helping people develop themselves emotionally… their well-being, physically, emotionally, kind of like case management in helping people.”
She was saying that she wanted to do for others what Manhattan Mental Health Court was doing for her.
“Just looking forward to the future, your Honor,” she said.
“That’s all good stuff,” Merchan replied. “Did you get the application in yet?”
“Yeah, I am just waiting on my financial aid package to come through,” she told him. “And hopefully, maybe I will have a little job from the program that I’m going to and go to work part-time, go to school part-time or full-time.”
“I am encouraged to hear of your plans towards the future,” Merchan said. You can definitely achieve all of that. You are very smart… You can definitely do all of that.”
Merchan relayed praise that had reached the court from a counselor at a group living facility where the defendant was residing.
“She said she wished all of her clients were like you,” Merchan said.
“Oh, wow,” the defendant exclaimed. “I am not going to lie, your Honor, we live with a bunch of women, and we are all in our emotions and we all are trying to get by. So there are issues.”
She then added, “But I try to be the peacemaker. I try to give respect. But also I am learning how to put boundaries up, and demand respect, in a good way. And just be a leader.”
She meant someone who inspires and unites and actually leads, not a mendacious, self-serving divider such as the more famous golfer who occupied that chair for seven weeks. Her particular mental illness does not seem to include being a pathological narcissist.
The defendant’s attorney, Eliza Orlins of the Legal Aid Society, told the judge how happy she was that her client was so positive about the future. Here was a moment in these divisive times when all sides joined together in cheering on someone.
“You are also one of my favorite clients,” Orlins told the defendant.
Asst. District Attorney Eva Marie Dowdell joined Merchan and Orlins in praising the defendant for her continued progress.
“I really look forward to hearing more about [her] job training and her school plans and her treatment and even her golf,” Dowdell said.
“My golf,” the defendant said. “Thank you so much.”
The woman departed. If she continues to progress, she will graduate from Mental Health Court and the charges will be dropped. Such graduations are celebrated in the courtroom with resounding cheers and applause.
A man then assumed the defendant’s chair as Manhattan Mental Health Court continued to the next case.
“Good morning,” Merchan said.
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