Judge: Oklahoma mental health department to pay $500 each day defendant left in jail
A judge has fined the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services $500 a day for leaving in jail a criminal defendant who needs treatment.
Oklahoma County District Judge Susan Stallings last week found the department in direct contempt of court.
The contempt finding is the latest example of the longstanding frustration in the judicial system with the state agency responsible for treating defendants whose criminal cases are on hold because of mental issues.
At issue is a lack of beds at the Oklahoma Forensic Center in Vinita, the state agency's only facility treating mentally incompetent defendants.
An Oklahoma County judge in 2015 threatened to jail the mental health commissioner at the time for not accepting a defendant at the Vinita facility for six months. “You just don’t get to ignore a court order,” the judge said.
The frustration has intensified in the last year, as the department has increasingly tried jail-based competency restoration programs because of the space issues in Vinita. The department has been hit with a civil rights lawsuit and has been accused of contempt of court almost 200 times.
"Jail is no place to treat people suffering severe mental illness. Jails are inherently punitive, neither designed to be, nor operated as, therapeutic facilities," attorneys complained in the lawsuit filed in federal court in Tulsa.
A criminal case is put on hold if a defendant is found to be mentally incompetent. Under the law, incompetency means the defendant cannot assist his attorney or understand the charge against him because of mental issues.
Most defendants regain competency after treatment and medication and are then prosecuted further. Some never do.
The Oklahoma Forensic Center has 216 beds, plus 80 more coming, the senior deputy commissioner at the Department of Mental Health said in an interview last year. Also, a converted residential substance abuse treatment center across the street has 50 beds.
"I want to be candid, OFC does run at capacity. And that's why we are expanding," the senior deputy commissioner, Durand Crosby, said.
The Oklahoma Forensic Center replaced Eastern State Hospital, which at its peak in the mid-1950s had 2,600 patients.
Also being treated at the Oklahoma Forensic Center are patients found not guilty by reason of insanity or, as it is called now, not guilty by reason of mental illness.
The Oklahoma Department of Mental Health said Thursday that 276 individuals are participating in jail-based competency programs.
Last year, 123 individuals had their competency restored through those programs, the department said.
The department was fined in a case involving a homeless man accused of throwing a softball-sized rock at the owner of a Greek restaurant in Oklahoma City last June.
Zachary Lee Whitaker, 23, was charged in July with a felony, assault with a dangerous weapon. In a Nov. 17 order, the judge committed him to the Oklahoma Forensic Center for treatment to restore competency. The judge found the department willfully disobeyed her order.
The Department of Mental Health contended it acted in compliance with state law. It said the law allows it to delay admissions "when such admissions would cause facilities to exceed their authorized capacity."
The $500 fines started Saturday and will continue until Whitaker is moved to the Vinita facility or another state mental health facility. Whitaker remained in jail Thursday.
"Although we respectfully disagree with the court’s finding, we are making every effort to comply with the order and admit the individual into the Oklahoma Forensic Center," the department said Thursday.
Last month, there were 27 defendants in the competency-restoration program at the Oklahoma County jail, according to testimony in other criminal cases.
The Department of Mental Health said treating defendants to competency in jails is "not novel or unique."
"States of all sizes do the same, from California, to Texas, to Virginia, to Louisiana. And many more," an assistant general counsel, Ryan Berry, wrote in a legal motion.
A critic of the state's jail-based programs testified Jan. 12 that inpatient treatment in a hospital setting is preferable.
"There are a number of problems," psychologist Shawn Roberson testified about the Oklahoma County program. "One, it does not sound like there is any type of intensive treatment going on."
Roberson once served as director of psychology at the Oklahoma Forensic Center. "I would just say this," he testified. "Jail-based competency has arisen in relation to lawsuits and in relation to long waiting lists. That's the only reason it's in existence.
"The longer people are in an acute psychotic phase the more difficult it is for them to recover."
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This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma mental health department gets fine over leaving patient in jail
