A year after a federal judge found a state agency was violating the rights of criminal defendants in need of mental health evaluations, state officials say they’ve made strides to decrease the amount of time people languish in custody before receiving services. That includes defendants at the Clark County Jail.
When attorneys are concerned about criminal defendants’ competency to stand trial and aid in their own defense, a court can order an assessment by a forensic evaluator from the Washington Department of Social and Health Services. As a part of a 2014 lawsuit over defendants’ pretrial constitutional rights, a federal court imposed time limits on evaluating defendants and, if found not competent, receiving competency restoration services.
In July 2023, a U.S. District Court judge in Tacoma found DSHS in contempt over ballooning wait times. The judge ordered the agency to pay $100 million in fines that were previously suspended for its violations between September 2022 and May 2023. The judge also directed DSHS to institute a series of policy changes aimed at slashing wait times, including prioritizing those who are in custody.
“As a result of inadequate bed space, (defendants) lacked access to prompt competency evaluation and restoration services. This compounded the harms and trauma (defendants) suffer from prolonged incarceration and delays in being processed through the criminal justice system,” the judge wrote.
A spokesman for DSHS says wait times have since improved. Now more than 90 percent of people in need of inpatient services are admitted within the court-ordered seven days. He pointed to the opening of a new facility in Tukwila and the conversion of a facility in Rochester that have freed up space at Western State Hospital for restoration services. In addition, the agency is now nearly fully staffed.
A treatment facility in Clark County’s Salmon Creek area is on track to open in 2025 and should further help open beds at the state hospital, he said.
Clark County defense attorney Kari Reardon said since the federal judge’s ruling, she has seen improvement in wait times for her clients with mental health needs.
“DSHS has reduced wait times to get individuals into the hospital who need competency restoration treatment,” she said. “A year ago, it didn’t look like that was going to happen.”
She recalls prior to the judge’s ruling, wait times were particularly bad. One of her clients waited eight months for a bed at the state hospital. She said for some, the wait for a psychiatric bed was longer than the jail time they would faced if they had been convicted. Still, Reardon noted that the services they receive from DSHS are only meant to stabilize them enough to be able to participate in the justice system, and it’s not the comprehensive mental health services many of them need.
“Where it becomes problematic is then you have these individuals that have been evaluated, some of them able to stabilize because the jails provided medication, or they’ve gone to the state hospital and they’re able to stabilize, but they can still get out with no medications and all those other issues, and then we just repeat, and we wind up in a vicious cycle,” Reardon said.
DSHS data show the demand for competency services has increased over the past 10 years, but the number of orders for services rose particularly fast between 2021 and 2022, when it increased by 40 percent.
The court noted the trend in those years seemed tied to the COVID-19 pandemic, with the demand for services flattening in 2020 when people weren’t being held in jail as frequently. The boost from 2021 to 2022 reflects the reopening of space in jail and the uptick in court operations, the judge found.
But the judge wrote that DSHS failed to adequately prepare for the increased demand, despite data showing cases would’ve likely reached roughly the same level without the pandemic. The judge also found the agency did not take the steps available to address the long wait times, and the agency made the issue worse when it began construction on a new facility at the Western State Hospital campus, which required it to close some of the existing facility.
DSHS said COVID infections within its facilities and staffing shortages further slowed the process during that time.
Reardon said she thinks the increase in need for competency services points to some combination of an increase in untreated mental health issues in the community and an increase in many’s recognition of those issues. She said in her 27½ years as an attorney, she has seen the prevalence of severe mental illness increase.
“We’re also more aware of the fact that there are mental issues that could be interfering, so as part of that, we’re all learning better ways to address and represent our clients,” Reardon said.
While the in-custody wait times have improved, Reardon said changing admission processes have a ripple effect. Now, she said those out of custody are still struggling to get a bed.
“There are certainly not enough resources to go around. They still need more,” she said. “It’s those that are out of custody that may not have services in the community that I think we’re seeing the delay is now causing the biggest detriment there. They may not have any resources. Many of them are homeless, and it is a quagmire. At some point we’re going to have to recognize that as a community, we need to do better for those that have mental health issues.”
