Contempt of court is being used to encourage action by the state and its Legislature regarding the mandate to fully fund education.
Now the state is being held in contempt by Superior Court judges in King and Pierce counties — and accumulating fines daily — because of the backlog of mentally ill defendants in criminal courts waiting for competency assessments or treatment in hospital emergency rooms or jails because there isn’t room for them at either of the state’s two psychiatric hospitals.
Snohomish County judges have yet to hold the state in contempt. But recently, given the choice between releasing and holding a mentally ill defendant in a child assault case in jail longer than the two months she had already been waiting for treatment, Superior Court Judge Bruce Weiss reluctantly ordered the woman’s release, albeit with some precautions.
Herald Writer Diana Hefley, in her most recent story on the issue, explained that Weiss had already determined that the woman’s constitutional rights were being violated because she was being kept in solitary confinement beyond a reasonable time.
The state cannot hold a defendant in custody — particularly in solitary confinement where the conditions only exacerbate a person’s illness — and then deny them the treatment that could help them reach a state of mental competency necessary to assist with their defense at trial.
The inadequate number of treatment beds at the Department of Social and Health Services’ psychiatric hospitals at Western State and Eastern State, is forcing judges into the contemptible — there’s that word again — choice of violating defendants’ rights by keeping them in jail, overtaxing emergency rooms not fully equipped to handle such patients or releasing them to face their illnesses in the community where they could pose a danger to themselves and others.
In a stopgap measure, the state spent $1.5 million to set up 20 psychiatric beds at facilities in Seattle and Tukwila, but that funding runs out today, even though Gov. Jay Inslee had authorized up to $30 million to address the issue in the short term.
In August, we suggested on this page that the state consider the recommendation of a Seattle pediatrician for a bond-funded capital construction program to create supportive housing for state residents with serious mental illness. It’s a starting point for the Legislature.
It’s not just state Superior Court judges anxious for resolution. A federal judge has scheduled a March 16 trial date for a lawsuit on behalf of mentally ill defendants waiting for competency evaluations and treatment.
That gives the Legislature, which already has a lengthy to-do list in front of it, a two-month head start to do something before the trial starts.
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