Veterans treatment court places willing military veterans who run afoul of the law under intense supervision that includes regular court appearances and meetings with a probation officer, frequent random drug tests, community service, treatment and even writing assignments.

Graduates say they get much more out of the program than they would from a lenient sentence.

“I was able to get my life back,” said Bill Midberry, an Army veteran from Slippery Rock who graduated from the program in August last year.

Midberry, 42, served five years in the Army as a military police officer until his discharge in 2005.

He said got a job at the state prison in Mercer County in 2007 but didn’t like it and decided to open a gun shop in his home.

He was self medicating in an effort to deal with his problems, but said he “tried to be normal so people wouldn’t see how screwed up I was.”

Financial problems with his gun shop led him to stop paying for criminal history background checks required by law for gun sales. The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives found out and arrested him in 2018 for selling five guns without conducting background checks.

Midberry said a SWAT team arrested him at his home and confiscated his entire inventory.

“I didn’t have enough money to pay state police for background checks, but I kept selling guns away,” Midberry said.

His arrest made headlines. The U.S. attorney’s office in Pittsburgh issued a news release detailing the arrest in August 2018.

Federal agents found a suicide note he’d written on his computer, he said. He was released to the Veterans Affairs Department and received inpatient treatment at a VA facility in Pittsburgh. He served a sentence of house arrest and probation.

In 2019, after ignoring summonses to appear in court in Butler County, he was arrested by another SWAT team on a theft charge state police filed after two people said they didn’t receive guns they ordered from him. Those guns were among those seized by the ATF.

While he was in county prison, a veterans justice outreach worker from VA Butler Healthcare paid him a visit and helped him reach a bail bondsman and get into veterans treatment court.

Jodie Snider, a native of Allegheny County who now lives in Clarion County, said he spent 35 years in active and reserve duty as a military police officer in the Army, and worked 27 years as a police officer in McCandless Township.

Responding to horrific incidents as a police officer added to his issues.

Working a jarring security detail at a morgue where the bodies of some of the 241 American military personnel who were killed by a suicide bomber in Beirut, Lebanon, were waiting to be returned to the United States in 1983, a year after he joined the Army, created psychological problems he was not able to immediately recognize.

“I really didn’t realize what a profound effect it had on me then,” Snider, 61, said.

“I dealt with a lot of bad things,” he said. “I was in denial over issues. I never pursued treatment.”

His issues reached a nadir on Nov. 2, 2016, when he decided to drink before going for a ride on his motorcycle and crashed in Lancaster Township. Paramedics performed a tracheotomy on the side of the road before Snider was flown to a hospital.

Snider said he was preparing to plead guilty to driving under the influence in court in July 2018 when Judge Timothy McCune asked him if he had been in contact with anyone from veterans treatment court.

He hadn’t. A veterans justice outreach worker from the VA who was in the courtroom began talking to him about the program, and he was eventually admitted.

“Veterans court saved my life,” Snider said.

McCune has presided over the county's veterans' treatment court, which places veterans struggling with addiction and mental health issues under intensive court supervision and treatment, since its inception in 2012.

McCune never served in the military, but he said helping veterans like Midberry and Snider turn their lives around has been the most gratifying part of his 42-year career as an attorney, prosecutor and judge.

“I really do care about these guys,” McCune said. “This is the most rewarding thing I've done in my professional career.”

Since the first veterans treatment court was established in 2008 in Buffalo, N.Y., the program has taken hold in more than 600 court systems across the country, including 32 county common pleas courts in Pennsylvania.

Veterans' treatment court is one of three specialty courts in Butler County Common Pleas Court that combine highly structured court supervision with treatment. Behavioral health treatment court focuses on defendants with mental health disorders, and drug treatment court is aimed at helping defendants with substance abuse problems.

McCune said the process for getting admitted to veterans' treatment court begins with a referral that can come from a number of sources including the police officers who make the initial arrests and corrections officers at the county prison.

The veteran's attorney then must apply for admission and the district attorney's office reviews the application and makes a recommendation to the veterans' court treatment team, which decides if the veteran can benefit from the program.

The team consists of McCune, Assistant District Attorney Mark Lope, Assistant Public Defender Kimberly Hudak, probation officer Tammy Courson, VA Butler Healthcare veteran justice outreach workers Christie Lucas, Kelly Fulmer and Mike Boylan, a representative of the county mental health department and attorney Steve Todd, who is the veterans treatment court mentor supervisor and the husband of Pennsylvania Supreme Court Chief Justice Debra Todd.

“When they first come in, they’re basically going through the motions,” McCune said. “The longer they’re in, the better the buy-in is.”

The program has four phases that take at least 90 days to complete. Veterans in the program are required to appear in court twice a month in the first two phases and once a month in phases three and four to update McCune on their treatment. Groups of veterans appear in court together. They are required to wear ties.

Treatment, rehabilitation, counseling and support group meetings are provided by VA Butler Healthcare and the county drug and alcohol program.

Veterans who fail a drug test in the early phases have to restart the phase they were in at the time and could be required to obtain additional treatment. Those who fail a test in the later phases could face more serious sanctions, McCune said. Drug tests are conducted frequently and randomly. Wearing SCRAM continuous alcohol monitoring devices is another program requirement.

Other requirements include completing 30 hours of community service and writing assignments in each phase. The writing assignments are meant to stimulate the veterans’ sense of self awareness and promote personal growth.

Veterans get a round of applause from the other veterans in the courtroom and gift cards upon completion of each phase.

“It’s amazing what a little recognition does,” McCune said.

Any veteran can apply for veterans treatment court regardless of when they served, said Christina Lucas, the veterans justice outreach coordinator at VA Butler Healthcare.

“We have a Vietnam vet now,” Lucas said.

Veterans are eligible for the program if they have a need for substance or mental health treatment, she said.

“They’ve given to their country; therefore they get this opportunity for us to give back to them,” Lucas said.

Veterans charged with homicide or sexual assault are not eligible.

Some military protocols are observed in veterans court. Courson calls each veteran to a podium, referring to them as veterans and their last names, and orders them to come to attention. They stand at attention until McCune tells them to “rest.”

“It’s a lot of structure, but veterans respond to structure. They learn structure in the military. I’m not a veteran, but a judge should be in a position of respect. We expect more from them than other defendants,” McCune said.

He said the recidivism rate is low and few veterans are removed from the program for failed drug tests or other violations. The team works with veterans who struggle so they can complete the program and begin leading healthy lives, he said.

“We try to figure out what they need instead of throwing them out of the program,” McCune said. “Our goal is to get them to change their behavior. We want them to be clean and sober and address mental health issues.”

He said the sentence reduction that veterans receive when they graduate serves as a carrot to entice them into the program.

“Once they buy in, they realize life will be better,” McCune said.

Midberry and Snider are good examples.

“When I started it was very overwhelming because there is lot of work involved with it. You do homework, write self assessments, a lot of work with the probation officer, attend a support group that meets weekly. It took me a while to get my head around it.

“You can’t leave the county, no drinking or drugs. It’s very intense supervision. They’re there to help you. They don’t set you up for failure. The judge gives everybody more chances than they would normally get to get themselves right,” Midberry said.

He said his felony charge was reduced to a misdemeanor and he was sentenced to serve two years of probation upon graduation. He was in the program for two and a half years because he had difficulty completing the community service requirements.

Snider said it took him two years to complete the program. In the end, he served 12 months of probation for a charge of recklessly endangering another person. He said he was not convicted of driving under the influence and didn’t lose his driver’s license.

“I hit rock bottom. If not for veterans court, I’d be dead,” Snider said.

At his graduation ceremony, he said he noticed one of his daughters was looking at him with pride while he read his graduation speech.

“I sobbed. To see my daughter looking at me knowing what I put her through,” he said.