Eric Smith knows the system from the inside. He's lived it, survived it, and spent years working to change it. The final episode of Minds on Trial returns to Eric's story — this time looking forward. Smith argues that the mental health and criminal justice conversation has been too cautious for too long, and that the evidence for what works is too strong to keep presenting politely. The researchers, judges, and advocates who've spent decades in this space agree: it's time to stop treating this like a quiet policy debate.

Eric Smith was living out of his car, certain he was a federal asset standing between the world and a World War III assassination plot. That was a decade ago. Today, he's an international consultant and a mental health commissioner. Episode four of Minds on Trial — the most personal of the five — tells Eric's story from the inside out: through Eric's own words, through his parents, and through the judge who refused to let the system write him off.

Twenty-five years ago, Judge Steve Leifman wasn't trying to start a massive reform. He was just trying to solve what was right in front of him. What followed became one of the most studied criminal justice experiments in America: arrests cut by more than half, police shootings down over 85 percent, an entire jail closed. Episode three of Minds on Trial travels to Miami-Dade County to find out what happens when a community decides to treat mental illness as a medical problem instead of a criminal one.