The justice system, it turns out, can be merciful.

Joseph Fryar was facing 20 years in prison for brandishing a gun during a road rage incident in 2016. For more than a year, he tried to fight the charges through the normal route defendants often taken in the legal system.

“I have children. I didn't want to miss their lives and I knew I'd die in prison,” Fryar said.

But as a military veteran, he had another option — a way out.

Fryar joined Butler County's specialty court for veterans on Sept. 20, 2017, allowing him to avoid most of the charges he was facing, including two felony counts of aggravated assault. But it was a strict path Fryar had to follow, and if he failed it by reoffending or taking drugs, he would automatically be given a prison sentence.

On Wednesday, Fryar and six other veterans celebrated their successful completion of veterans court during a ceremony in the government building. This was the program's seventh graduation. Since starting in 2012, the program has graduated 36 people.

The ceremony was attended by all of the members who make up the veterans court team, which includes a probation officer, a member of the Butler County Prison and workers with VA Butler Healthcare.

There are 20 veterans courts in Pennsylvania. In 2017, there were 197 veterans who, like Fryar, graduated from the program, according to state Supreme Court Justice Debra McCloskey Todd, who also attended Wednesday's ceremony.

“Many veterans struggle with PTSD,” said Todd, who is also a county native. “Their struggles impact us all.”

Fryar was a member of the U.S. Army between September 1987 and September 1991. He served as a patrolling supply specialist in Kuwait and Iraq during the Gulf War.

“I was right there in the big sandbox,” Fryar said Wednesday as he prepared to graduate from the treatment program. “I drove a truck with 2,500 gallons of oil from Saudi Arabia to Iraq. That's a lot of fun. Everyone wants to shoot you. You're just a big bomb.”

Fryar said that after returning from the service, he struggled with anger, specifically road rage, and that the treatment programs he underwent in veterans court helped him “rewire (his) brain.”

Judge Timothy McCune oversees the program and helped establish it in 2012. During the graduation ceremony, he lamented the limited size of the program.

“In a perfect world, everyone in the criminal justice system would get this same focused attention and treatment,” he said. “Veterans in the treatment program are more supervised than anyone else in the system.”

He noted that the program allows him and the others to tweak each defendant's program.

“We have therapeutic adjustments. Sometimes, that means putting them in jail for a few days,” McCune said. “Our goal is to deal with the problems that brought them to the criminal justice system to begin with. It's not an easy goal to reach. These guys have put an awful lot of hard work to get here today.”

Additionally, veterans court isn't open to every veteran offender, Assistant District Attorney Robert Zanella said.

“My role is to be the gatekeeper,” Zanella said. “We decide on which candidates will be allowed in the program.”

Zanella said that several factors are taken into consideration, including interviews with the candidates and their willingness to change their behavior.

“From there, I decide what sanctions to take if they fail a drug test or something,” he said. “Of course, we give them multiple chances. We expect them to have substance abuse problems. That's probably what brought them here in the first place.”

But sometimes, a defendant will be removed from the program. The cost of failing the program is a stark departure from the merciful side of the system.

A veteran of the U.S. conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan suffering from heroin addiction was sentenced last week to 15 to 30 months in jail and 24 years of probation for aggravated assault after he was kicked out of veterans court.

But Zanella said the benefits outweigh the potential costs.

“I think it's a great opportunity for these guys,” he said. “It helps them get help they need that they probably wouldn't get anywhere else.”