Clark County eyes expert panel to evaluate ill defendants
SEATTLE — Washington judges have begun holding the state’s health services agency in contempt and are ordering sanctions for each day the state fails to provide competency evaluations and treatment for mentally ill people held in county jails.
The sanctions range from $200 to $500 for each day the defendant sits in a cell instead of being treated at one of two psychiatric hospitals. By Wednesday, the fines were approaching $100,000, an Associated Press investigation found.
Other judges are releasing the mentally ill defendants to the streets.
Besides violating a defendant’s constitutional right to due process and a speedy trial, holding them in jail without treatment “may also be a violation of their Eighth Amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment,” said Pierce County Superior Judge Frank Cuthbertson, who has filed about a dozen orders this year.
“We’ve had clinical staff from the hospital testify in open court and admit that locking people in a jail cell who have a chronic or acute mental illness actually makes them worse,” Cuth- bertson said. “It exacerbates their condition.”
He said he knows the state is strapped for money, so contempt orders are not the solution, “but I feel the state has to be compelled to fulfill its constitutional obligation.”
Jane Beyer, an assistant secretary for the Department of Social and Health Services, said she and other officials are aware of the courts’ concerns.
“DSHS agrees that waiting too long in jail is not appropriate and delays the treatment mentally ill people need to assist in their own defense,” Beyer said. “By and large, the courts have recognized that DSHS cannot solve this issue on its own and without additional funding.”
When mentally ill people are charged with crimes but are unable to help in their defense, judges routinely order competency evaluations. If the defendant is found incompetent, judges order treatment to have competency restored.
But a shortage of beds at Western and Eastern state hospitals has resulted in long evaluation wait lists and delays that run up to 60 days, records show.
Jenna Henderson, a public defender in Olympia, said a Thurston County judge did the same thing for one of her clients. The judge released the defendant while he remained on the competency evaluation wait list.
But judges in King and Pierce counties are issuing orders and fines.
Abbey Perkins, a King County public defender, said earlier this year that judges responded to her motions with contempt orders and sanctions. But when the orders were filed, those particular defendants were moved to the top of the wait lists and transported for treatment.
While the beds fill up, the fines add up.
The AP collected more than a dozen contempt orders dating back to July. Some inmates were moved after 12 days to 27 days and the sanctions stopped. But in other cases, the fines continue.
“Our jail population is exploding because these folks are being held here,” he said. “I believe while they’re here, the state should not be allowed to pass the buck. It should compensate the county while they’re detained.”
