Mentally ill defendants jailed due to hospital
bed shortage; Contra Costa County judge issues sanctions

by NATE GARTRELL | Bay Area News Group | UPDATED: September 27, 2017

MARTINEZ — A Contra Costa Judge had harsh words —
and a $17,400 bill — for the California
Department of State Hospitals, saying the agency
was violating the due process rights of dozens of
severely mentally ill county jail inmates.

At the center of the issue is a 2016 state
appellate court ruling that gave the hospital a
60-day deadline to hospitalize Contra Costa jail
inmates with unresolved criminal charges who have
been found mentally incompetent to stand trial.

When a Contra Costa criminal defendant is found
mentally incompetent, he or she is supposed to be
housed at Napa State Hospital where doctors will
attempt to “restore competency,” usually through
medication. But Contra Costa defense attorneys
say they routinely see defendants stay in jail
for weeks after the 60-day deadline has come and gone.

“The worst case I’ve ever seen was over 100 days,
I think around 115,” Deputy Public Defender Stephanie Regular said.

In July, more than a year after the deadline was
issued, Judge Clare Maier found the state agency
was routinely violating it. As she issued $17,400
in fines — $100 for every day a group of 29
inmates has had to stay in jail past the deadline
— she blasted the agency, saying its staff have
been aware of the problem for three years.

“Having violated the standing order, the DSH also
violated the constitutional due process right of
those defendants found incompetent to stand trial
by failing to provide them timely competency
restoration services,” Maier wrote in her ruling.

Maier’s order only applies to Contra Costa, but
the lack of available hospital beds for
defendants who have been found mentally
incompetent to stand trial is a statewide issue.
Data released to Bay Area News Group last year
showed more than 450 California jail inmates were
awaiting hospital beds as of June 2016. The
average inmate stayed in jail for 56 days after they’d been found incompetent.

Kenna Cook, a spokeswoman for the DSH, said the
agency has been addressing the problem, adding
600 hospital beds since the 2012-13 fiscal year.
Of those, around 400 are in hospitals and around 200 are in jail facilities.

“Additionally, the fiscal year 2017-18 state
budget includes funding for additional beds for
the treatment of (inmates who are incompetent to
stand trial), including expanding DSH’s
jail-based restoration of competency programs and
establishing a new 60-bed Admission, Evaluation,
and Stabilization center for (those) patients in
the Kern County Jail,” Cook said.

But Regular — who handles cases for almost all of
the county’s mentally incompetent inmates — said
she hasn’t seen the situation improve over the
past 12 months. She and colleagues are planning
to bring before Maier another 17 mentally
incompetent inmates who have stayed in jail past 60 days.

“From my point of view..I don’t think that (the
fine) is enough,” Regular said. “Especially since
they’re still violating the order, it seems like
it’s not sending the message that it needed to send.”

Source link:
http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/09/26/mentally-ill-defendants-jailed-due-to-hospital-bed-shortage-contra-costa-judge-issues-sanctions/