Criminal defendants with mental health conditions can be made to wait in jail for weeks at a time before being admitted to the Oregon State Hospital for treatment.
PORTLAND, Ore. — A federal judge found the Oregon Health Authority in contempt of court on Friday, determining that it has failed to follow court orders requiring it to promptly admit mentally ill defendants to the state psychiatric hospital.
The ruling means that fines will soon start racking up, and plaintiffs in the case hope that it will force Oregon to make major changes to its mental health system. Criminal defendants with mental health needs are otherwise made to wait in jails, sometimes for weeks at a time, before being admitted to the Oregon State Hospital.
“Today’s ruling is a major win for our clients whose Constitutional rights have been violated while they suffer in jail instead of receiving the court-ordered mental health restoration services they need,” said Jake Cornett, executive director and CEO of plaintiff Disability Rights Oregon. “We’re hopeful swift implementation of the monetary sanctions and remedial measures will kickstart real solutions to fix Oregon’s broken mental health system.”
RELATED: Oregon State Hospital has new acting superintendent after patient’s death, Kotek’s office says
The order from U.S. District Judge Adrienne Nelson mentions a near-identical case in Washington, where a contempt of court designation and its resulting fines pushed the state to significantly improve its capacity to treat people with severe mental illness.
“Ultimately, defendants’ stipulation to the continued existence of constitutional violations, as well as the overall failure of less-intrusive measures to remedy those violations, indicate that the implementation of monetary sanctions and remedial measures is necessary to bring the State back into compliance with the Court’s Permanent Injunction,” Judge Nelson wrote in the order.
“The monetary sanctions imposed should be (and here are) reasonably tailored, and in determining the number of monetary sanctions to impose the Court has considered the character and magnitude of the harms threatened by defendants’ continued noncompliance and the probable effectiveness of any such sanction,” she continued.
This is a developing story and may be updated with more details as they emerge.
