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SAN DIEGO (CN) — San Diego County agreed to pay $760,000 to a Vietnam War veteran who claimed he was kept mistakenly confined in a state psychiatric facility for 20 years because the county’s public defenders representing him didn’t know the law.
The case’s complexity and “intensely disputed” liability, causation and damages — in addition to the county’s statute of limitations and immunity arguments — tee up a lengthy legal battle and possible appeal that could have shut the door for the veteran, Alan Alter, to get justice, a magistrate judge found, granting Alter’s motion for an order approving a settlement involving an incompetent adult and distribution of settlement money.
“The settlement alleviates the risk of both zero recovery should Mr. Alter not prevail at trial, and a potential years-long legal battle,” wrote U.S. Magistrate Judge for the Southern District of California Barbara L. Major. “Mr. Alter is 74 years old and protracted litigation presents the risk that he may pass away without receiving any funds.”
Alter was sentenced in 1996 to a 2-year state prison term for violating the probation set after his 1987 conviction for “recklessly causing a fire of structure or forest land.”
The former Marine Corps member suffers from severe mental illness dating back to 1975, when he was discharged after seeing combat.
At the end of his prison term, rather than being paroled, Alter was dubbed a “mentally disordered offender” and erroneously committed to Atascadero State Hospital, a facility that houses mentally ill convicts who have been committed to psychiatric facilities.
From 2000 to 2018, Alter claims he was kept confined because the deputy public defenders representing him at annual hospital extension hearings didn’t review the relevant statute and were unaware that his criminal conviction for causing a fire did not make him eligible for involuntary confinement as a mentally disordered offender.
The Mentally Disordered Offender program, now called the Offenders with a Mental Health Disorder program, was created to keep and treat criminal offenders with severe mental health problems in state hospitals past their prison terms if they are deemed dangerous to others.
It wasn’t until 2018 that a newly assigned public defender realized Alter couldn’t be kept confined against his will under the statute and sought to dismiss a new petition to extend his confinement. That attempt failed, but the following year the judge appointed a criminal defense attorney in private practice to represent Alter.
This attorney filed a habeas corpus petition in 2020 asserting ineffective assistance of the county’s public defenders. After a California judge ordered the county to explain why Alter shouldn’t be released, the San Diego District Attorney dropped the pending petitions to extend Alter’s involuntary confinement. He was freed in 2021 — 20 years after he was supposed to be released.
The proposed settlement requires San Diego County to pay $760,000.00 to Alter. Of that money, $253,333.33 will go to his attorney’s fees, and the remainder will go to Alter. Alter will have $56,666.67 immediately available to him through a special needs trust, while the other $450,000.00 will be used to purchase one or more structured settlement annuities to provide monthly income of a little over $4,000 a month for him for at least 12 years.
“The initial settlement payment and monthly annuity payments may only be used to benefit Mr. Alter during his lifetime so this is a significant benefit to him,” Major wrote. “The fact that Mr. Alter will receive the settlement funds immediately as opposed to after a trial and/or appeal (or receiving no money if Mr. Alter is unsuccessful at trial) is a significant benefit to him. The settlement money will improve Mr. Alter’s quality of life for the remainder of his expected lifetime, which favors finding that it is fair and reasonable.”
Alter was represented in the lawsuit by his brother as a guardian ad litem.
Attorneys for both Alter and San Diego County didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment on the settlement.
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