California Justices Call for Prompt Treatment for the Mentally Incompetent
The California Supreme Court has rejected the state’s appeal of an order requiring prompt mental treatment for more than 1,000 criminal defendants who are being held in jail for months after being found mentally incompetent to stand trial.
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The California Supreme Court has rejected the state’s appeal of an order requiring prompt mental treatment for more than 1,000 criminal defendants who are being held in jail for months after being found mentally incompetent to stand trial, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. The case involves defendants who are found to be unable to understand the criminal proceedings they are facing, or unable to communicate with their lawyer.
Under state law, they cannot be tried or allowed to plead guilty, but instead must be taken to a state hospital or other treatment center, where they can be held for up to two years while undergoing care to restore their competency. If those efforts fail, the state can seek to keep them hospitalized in a non-criminal commitment or set them free. According to a state appeals court, as of 2017 those defendants were being held in county jails for an average of 86 days, after the trial judge’s transfer order, before the state was able to send them to a hospital. According to plaintiffs in the case, about 1,600 jail inmates were on the waiting list for hospital admission, an increase of 500 percent since 2013, and between 300 and 400 a month were being sent to hospitals as of June, 2021. The appeals court said the waiting periods have increased during the pandemic, despite the state’s efforts to increase hospital resources and treatment. Now, a federal judge has decided that California must provide medical care, in a hospital or other facility, 28 days after receiving orders to provide treatment because of a court’s finding of incompetence. The order will go into effect in January, 2022.
