Does anyone know about Joe Lovelace? He's with an organization called NAMI. I have a murder case with the insanity defense coming up and defense has given notice of Lovelace. They say he will testify at punishment about sentencing options for mentally ill defendants on probation.

Joe Lovelace is (or was) the president of the Texas chapter of NAMI, a national advocacy group for the mentally ill. He spends a lot of time at the Capitol during the session, lobbying and testifying on the need for increased funding for the mental health system; for instance, NAMI helped secure additional state funding for TCOMI (Tx. Council for Offenders w/ Mental Impairments) last session. For more, check out TCOMI's website here: TDCJ-TCOMI.

I think Joe became involved in volunteering for NAMI due to a son with mental illness, and there's some tragic story behind it, but I don't know the details.

I would guess that in addition to being a self-styled expert on sentencing options for the mentally ill on probation, he'd say how horrible it is for the mentally ill to be in prison, yada, yada. But I wouldn't categorize him as a bleeding heart on crime issues.

I know joe lovelace. He is a good man. His son does have some severe mental illness. He is a trial attorney. Did general practice in Linden Texas for a number of years. He later went to Dallas and specialize in medical malpractice. He has retired to be a full time unpaid lobbyist on mental health issues. He testified for the defense in the Houston case in which the mother killed her five children. I doubt he is a bleeding except where health issues are concerned. His father was a District Attorney in the late 50s early 60s