MERIDIAN, Miss. (AP) - Police arrested CL in December of 2013 and his friend, JM, one month later. The men, both homeless, had been accused of multiple charges of uttering forgery, more commonly known as writing bad checks.
The two men, who may no longer be prosecuted for their crimes considering their mental illnesses, are not being identified by their full names by The Meridian Star. Their cases provide an example of how a crime committed by people with a serious mental illness can prevent them from receiving the help they need.
A report Feb. 11 in The Meridian Star explored long delays for defendants accused of a crime, some waiting more than three years for a trial. For defendants with a mental illness, the wait for justice can be even longer.
Both CL and JM have severe mental illnesses and couldn’t be convicted of a crime until their competency was restored, meaning until they could understand their own charges and assist their attorneys. Through their public defenders these men petitioned the state to provide a mental health evaluation, which took a year to grant.
Each man waited nearly four years in the Lauderdale County Detention Facility, not a mental health facility, waiting on a lengthy, state-wide list to receive their much-needed treatment at the state hospital.
CL’s attorney requested an evaluation and treatment on Aug. 26, 2014.
On Oct. 8, 2015, CL was ordered to seek treatment and commit to Whitfield, the only state hospital that provides competency restoration for criminal defendants. He didn’t formally receive treatment, however, until late 2017.
By November, CL had been transferred to Whitfield. He had spent at least 730 days waiting for his treatment.
The delay cost Lauderdale County more than $49,600, according to a decade-old cost estimate from the state that said it cost $68/ day to house a defendant.
JM’s attorney submitted a motion for an evaluation and treatment on Oct. 17, 2014 and he was ordered to treatment nearly a year later on Oct. 14, 2015.
JM left the Lauderdale County Detention Facility on Feb. 20, more than two years after being ordered to treatment.
His 860-day wait cost the county an estimated $58,480.
Court slowdown
John C. Helmert Jr., a former Lauderdale County public defender, served as the public defender for JM briefly and shared some court details that bogged the case down.
Criminal cases are handled in the Circuit Court while cases dealing with mental health issues or involuntary commitments are handled by the Chancery Court. When defendants with a mental illness want to plead as incompetent to stand trial, the line between the two courts blurs.
“It’s unclear how the issues mesh between courts,” Helmert said. “If you have people who are not competent, who are mentally ill to the point where they don’t know or they can’t assist their own lawyer in preparation of the defense they can be declared incompetent by a court - which means that they cannot be tried.”
Helmert warned, however, being ruled incompetent doesn’t help defendants get treatment.
“But just saying they can’t be tried doesn’t cure the problem and it doesn’t get them out of the jail. if a court finds they need to be taken to a facility and treated until their competency is restored, even in those very rare circumstances where that happens, the Mississippi State Hospital at Whitfield is so backed up that it takes years to get them there,” Helmert said.
In the case of his former client, JM, Helmert said he couldn’t get him moved further up the waiting list.
“People like him have to sit in county jails, treated like criminals and maybe he is a criminal, but he hasn’t been found to be one, but because he has mental health problems he has to sit there longer than people who do not have mental health problems,” Helmert said. “This position is really just mistreating people who have already been mistreated by society and by other individuals, (people who have been) used for other people’s gains. It’s just mistreating him further.”
Additionally, studies suggest that spending time in jail hurts those suffering from a mental illness.
“Holding people … who have been found to have severe mental health disabilities, is particularly egregious because there is a long and deep well of academic literature that makes it clear that the conditions of confinement that you find in jail exacerbate mental illness,” said Paloma Wu, legal director of the ACLU of Mississippi, in an Oct. 2016 report about Chancery Court (non-criminal) commitments.
If ever convicted, CL and JM could return to society without going to prison, or receive a sentence for ’time served.’
In October, Helmert said, “(JM) is completely incompetent at this point and desperately in need of that mental health treatment.”
Whitfield: The current model
Philip Gaines, the court liaison coordinator of forensic services at Mississippi’s State Hospital in Whitfield said the hospital had added new staff and decreased the waiting time from previous years.
In 2015, the state had 110-150 pending evaluation orders. In 2017, the hospital had 39 waiting for an evaluation and a waiting list of three to four months.
The hospital has 35 beds for patients in need of forensic services, which restores competency and treats severe mental illnesses. Fifteen of those beds are reserved for pre-trial competency restoration while the remaining beds treat those found guilty by reason of insanity and those committed to treatment by a Chancery Court.
“There is an effort underway to change that by increasing the number of restoration beds,” Gaines said. “We are looking for ways that increase our ability to do more competency restoration.”
The other 20 beds are less restrictive, Gaines said, but the institution might attempt to convert some of those beds to pre-trial competency restoration beds.
If, during their treatment at Whitfield, a defendant’s competence cannot be restored, then the defendant cannot be convicted and will be committed to treatment in the least restrictive environment fitting for their specific case.
Gaines said 39 defendants across the state were waiting for an evaluation with an average wait time of three to four months.
Another 60 inmates, already evaluated and ruled not competent, were waiting for a bed at the hospital. On average, those defendants waited 13 months.
Gaines said treatment could be delayed because courts may not be aware of someone struggling with a mental illness in jail and thus haven’t signed any orders.
Or these orders may not be submitted promptly after a defendant’s arrest. While each case is unique, some are delayed by incomplete paperwork, something that can delay cases such as CL and JM.
Though Gaines couldn’t confirm CL’s and JM’s records, due to medical privacy laws, he did discuss the challenges of incomplete paperwork. Often, someone struggling with a severe mental illness without a home won’t carry their paperwork with them, making it difficult for caretakers to track down their past.
“Sometimes, (if there’s a history of mental illness) they may have been in five different states at several different hospitals,” Gaines said. “If we can have their records, we can see what medications have worked in the past.”
Records could also clarify cases where evaluators may suspect malingering, or feigning an illness to avoid incarceration.
“I’ve had (doctors) tell me, ’I think this might be a case of malingering, but if I had their records I could compare those (notes) and it would give me greater insight,’ ” Gaines said.
In addition to exploring the possibility of more competency beds, Gaines said a pilot program in Hinds and Madison County had explored the possibilities of jail-based competency restoration programs, which could reduce the delay.
For a defendant’s competency to be restored at the state hospital, the Mississippi Department of Mental Health estimated it cost $10,000 a month to treat one person. However, through a program with the Region 8 Community Mental Health Center, the department planned to reduce that cost to $1,200 by providing those services to defendants currently in jail.
These defendants, waiting for availability at the state hospital, receive some treatment and education about the legal system from trained social workers at the Region 8 center while at their local jail.
The report from the Department of Mental Health said it reduced costs with the program by restoring competency to some individuals and shortening the length of treatment at the state hospital for others.
Of the 15 who entered the program, three were re-evaluated and found to be competent, saving the state hospital thousands in treatment, according to a release from the Department of Mental Health.
Gaines added, however, that it may be difficult to implement the system in more rural counties with less resources or trained professionals.
“(In Region 8), it has already paid for itself in savings,” Gaines said.
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