The young man before District Court Judge Michael A. Higgins was arrested for tampering with a motor vehicle and held overnight at the Adult Correctional Institutions. Robert Marro soon learns that something more is going on with his client, whom he has just met for the first time. Marro runs the Defender Community Advocacy Program, which works out of the Rhode Island Public Defender’s office to offer indigent clients on-the-spot assistance at their arraignments, including addressing possible problems with alcohol or drug addiction, physical abuse or mental illness.

The man’s family is in court, and they tell the program’s social worker, Alberta Catallozzi, that he has been exhibiting erratic behavior recently and had injured his head earlier in the week.

In this often chaotic setting, a lawyer-client conference may consist of quick whispers and fast work in front of the judge. The program includes social workers, translators and intake workers who try to identify factors that have brought the person into court in the first place. One of the goals is to keep people out of the ACI who don’t belong there or to eliminate long stints in prison while awaiting another court date.

Marro says the work that the advocacy program performs has “a ripple effect” because a quick resolution of cases saves the state time and money. He says the program tries for a “quick resolution of the case as long as it’s fair to everybody.”

According to Marro, “The genius of this is that it is an easy remedy for a chronic problem.” Experienced lawyers such as Marro, who has been a public defender for 21 years, work out of both Garrahy Judicial Complex and now Kent County Court House, providing representation in cases that are not serious felonies. Before the program was established three years ago, people often pleaded guilty especially on a first arrest because they didn’t know their legal options.

As happens in hospital emergency rooms, this team performs triage on the cases that show up in court, trying to step up to do whatever is needed. Another young man in court was arrested and taken into custody in his stocking feet. After Marro helps to win his release, Catallozzi says there are extra shoes in their office downstairs, so there is no need for him to leave Garrahy shoeless.

Ultimately Judge Higgins listens to the father of the young man arrested for tampering with a car and decides to postpone the arraignment and release him to his father so that he can receive the help he needs.