Judge Pierce F. Cohalan<\/a> presides.\n <\/p>\n\n An Army reservist with a high-and-tight haircut, Cohalan keeps proceedings in the small, gray courtroom informal and personal, routinely asking defendants how he can help them. Like his predecessor, he doesn\u2019t wear a robe.\n <\/p>\n
\n For Cohalan, the program is about progress, not perfection. If participants make mistakes or relapse, they\u2019re not kicked out.\n <\/p>\n
\n Pryer, for example, first entered the program in 2019 following an arrest for criminal possession of a weapon and driving while intoxicated, then re-entered it after he was arrested on similar weapons charges in 2022.\n <\/p>\n
\n He was sentenced to three years of probation in April after completing veterans court, according to a court system spokesperson.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cA number of participants misstep,\u201d Cohalan said. \u201cWe\u2019re here to catch them or to pick them up, and to keep them moving forward.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Navigating sobriety, court appearances, therapy and lawyers can be overwhelming.\n <\/p>\n
\n A volunteer group of vets uniformed in kelly green bomber jackets is there to help. The Green Jackets, mostly Vietnam vets, mentor and guide defendants through the process. Volunteer Grace Mehl, a 20-year veteran of the Navy, explained how shared experiences in combat or in the court allows participants to trust them, and, ultimately, to succeed.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cThe more they can talk to us about their issues, the more they get it off their chest, the more they can start to see answers,\u201d Mehl said.\n <\/p>\n
\n Melissa, who asked for her last name not to be used, is a great example of how it works.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cWhen she first came, she was a piece of work. She was just all over the place,\u201d Mehl said.\n <\/p>\n
\n Two years ago, Melissa had an order of protection against her, wore an ankle monitor, used drugs. Her family wanted nothing to do with her. Melissa called her life \u201ccompletely just a disaster.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n After she was arrested for violating that protection order, Melissa said, she reluctantly accepted transferring to vets court, but wanted nothing to do with anyone in it. But Mehl and others eased her into the program, gained her trust and supported her as she trudged the road to recovery.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cThey just directed me toward where I was supposed to be. And step by step, they opened doors for me,\u201d said Melissa, who served in the Navy in the 1990s.\n <\/p>\n
\n As of November, Melissa said, she was two years sober and reconnected with her mother, whom she talks with daily.\n <\/p>\n
\n Camaraderie is key to the success of the Suffolk veterans court, where former service members enact a new mission within the most elemental military tradition: having another soldier\u2019s back.\n <\/p>\n
\n The court boasts a 90% success rate for the hundreds of veteran participants, according to Cohalan.\n <\/p>\n
\n Frank D\u2019Aversa, a Green Jackets founding member, has been with the court since its inception. Being shunned by World War II and Korean War veterans when he returned from Vietnam propelled him to get involved.\n <\/p>\n
\n His group operates on a simple conviction: \u201cNever again will one generation of veterans abandon another,\u201d D\u2019Aversa said.\n <\/p>\n
\n Pryer, a D\u2019Aversa mentee who served four years in the Marines, was recently invited to become a Green Jacket. For Pryer, 18 months sober and a two-time graduate of vets court, it\u2019s an opportunity to give back the gift he got in the program, to help vets through the system he\u2019s seen as both a lawman and a defendant.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cI am honored to do it today,\u201d he said.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Greg Pryer served in the Marine Corps three decades ago and then worked as a New York…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":380101,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-380100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=380100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380100\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/380101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Judge](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/judge-cohalan-speaks-to-graduates.jpg\")
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