Judge stymied on sentencing of murder plot case

A Nevada County judge said Friday a lack of local treatment options for mentally ill offenders is preventing him from handing down his preferred sentence in the case of a bipolar woman who plotted to kill her husband.

Erzsebet Racine, who has suffered from bipolar disorder for several years, was arrested in March after she tried to hire a hit man to kill her husband, Dennis Racine, for $5,000. She's remained incarcerated since, while the Nevada County justice system tries to figure out what to do with her.

Nevada County Superior Court Judge Robert Tamietti said that he would like to see Racine get help for her psychological problem, while remaining under a watchful eye at a secure mental health facility for a year, after she has served a year in county jail.

But there is no such treatment program in Nevada County.

"There is nothing suitable locally," Tamietti said in court Friday. "I'm trying to craft a treatment scenario that affords the same protection as if I were to send her off to Chowchilla," he said, "but with incarceration there is zero treatment. I don't have great alternatives."

A prison sentence up to six years is a possible sentence for Racine's crime of solicitation for murder.

The only way Racine could be sentenced to a state mental health institution is if she was found to be legally insane, but she does not meet the requirements for legal insanity in California, said her attorney Monica Lynch.

Racine is also not a candidate for local mental health court, because her offense was too serious, said Nevada County Deputy District Attorney Katherine Francis.

"She tried to get someone killed," Francis said Friday.

Tamietti granted Lynch one week to find an acceptable treatment option for her client. Lynch said she has been racking her brain and running out of resources trying to find something suitable for Racine.

She and Francis have worked together, talking to judges from other jurisdictions and multiple mental health officials to come up with an agreeable scenario for Racine.

Together, they attended the latest National Alliance for the Mentally Ill conference in Sacramento.

"Our options are lousy," Francis said in her office Friday, with Lynch nodding nearby.

They say the likelihood of another county with a secure mental health facility funding the cost of Racine's care is minimal, and the state won't pay for it either, because Racine's is not legally insane.

Racine, Lynch said, has no money to pay for her own care. She may receive some money from a divorce settlement, but she cannot receive the money until she is released from custody.

Lynch said she has been reduced to searching the Internet for a plausible scenario.

"Thank God for the Internet," she said in court Friday, after Tamietti granted her another week to craft a solution.

Standing outside the courtroom Friday, Dennis Racine lamented he tried to get his ex-wife help for her mental illness in Nevada County prior to her arrest, but nothing was available for her unless she did something damaging to herself or someone else.

"For four months before her arrest I tried to get (Nevada County) Mental Health to help her," he said. "I went to them and the sheriff's office at least three or four times."

Every time he asked for help, he said, he was told nothing could be done about his concerns because his wife did not want help for herself and she had not committed a crime.

He fears that his wife will be sentenced to a brief stint in jail and outpatient counseling, which he said she would not attend.

"She's a danger because of her illness," he said.

Attorneys on both sides say they fear Racine will be sentenced to state prison, where she will get no help for her mental illness and perhaps become more of a threat to society upon her release.

"CDC (California Department of Corrections) is punitive," Francis said.

"It's where people are warehoused," Lynch said. "There is no mental health assistance."

Racine's sentencing is scheduled for 9 a.m. Aug. 18 in Nevada County Superior Court.

ooo

To contact staff writer Robyn Moormeister, e-mail robynm@theunion or call 477-4236.