A longstanding federal court ruling has required officials to admit mentally ill defendants to the Oregon State Hospital within seven days. But they have failed to do that in hundreds of cases since January 2018, causing unlawfully long stays in jail. Beth Nakamura/Staff

BY GORDON R. FRIEDMAN | The Oregonian/OregonLive

Oregon routinely violates a federal court order that requires mentally ill people who get charged with crimes to be admitted promptly to the state mental hospital, an analysis by The Oregonian/OregonLive has found.

The frequent delays, some of them lasting more than a month, trample the rights of mentally ill people accused of minor or serious crimes, as judges have ruled they cannot be left to languish in county jails.

Since January 2018, court, jail and hospital officials collectively failed more than 200 times to get people out of jail and into treatment within the court-ordered seven-day timeline, The Oregonian/OregonLive found by analyzing data obtained under a public records request.

The reasons for the unlawfully slow admissions: a lack of available beds at the institution, late filing of paperwork by county court officers, delays on the part of county sheriffs to schedule transport to the Oregon State Hospital in Salem, and, in two cases, bad weather.

“It is very upsetting that defendants are in jail and are not able to access our resources as timely as the court requires and, more importantly, as is appropriate for their needs and their rights,” Dolly Matteucci, the Oregon State Hospital superintendent, told The Oregonian/OregonLive.

A spokeswoman for Gov. Kate Brown, Lisa Morawski, said in a statement Friday that Brown expects the hospital’s parent agency, the Oregon Health Authority, “to continue to monitor and focus on this immediate issue” and comply with court-ordered admission timelines.

Martha Walters, chief justice of the Oregon Supreme Court, said in a statement that she will have the judicial system “review our processes” to address when state courts have been responsible for delays. Phil Lemman, a spokesman for the Oregon Judicial Department, said officials will develop a plan to standardize how court orders are sent to jails and the Oregon State Hospital.

“We need to work with the Legislature and the justice system to make sure that roles are clear and resources are available – especially when constitutional rights are at stake,” Walters said.

The U.S. Department of Justice plays a role in upholding Americans’ civil rights and has previously intervened to ensure proper operation of the Oregon State Hospital. A spokeswoman for the department’s civil rights division declined to comment on the tardy hospital admissions. Kevin Sonoff, a spokesman for Billy Williams, the U.S. attorney for the District of Oregon, said he “cannot provide comment on potential future investigations or litigation.”

A 2003 ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the idea that the state faced understandable challenges in promptly admitting patients from jails. It set a strict seven-day clock, citing "the undisputed harms that incapacitated criminal defendants suffer when they spend weeks or months in jail waiting for transfer" to the state mental hospital.

But since January 2018, state officials admitted people after that deadline at least 202 times, extending their time in jail, the newsroom analysis found. The late entries accounted for 29 percent of all admissions for mentally ill defendants. And of the 202 defendants, 63 had been charged only with misdemeanors – crimes that often result in little or no jail-time upon conviction.

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Interactive by Dave Cansler/Staff

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Oregon State Hospital officials redacted defendant names from records provided under a public records request, citing laws against revealing patient identities. But improperly redacted documents – where text was covered with black bars but not deleted – allowed journalists to see the names of 58 patients, eight of whom were admitted after court-ordered timelines.

Consider one of those cases, out of Washington County: A schizophrenic homeless woman jailed on misdemeanor charges was ordered to the state hospital for trial fitness treatment. She remained in the jail instead of the hospital for a week past deadline, records show, because court workers were late to submit her paperwork and the sheriff’s office “could not transport due to staffing.” Transporting a single inmate generally requires two deputies to make the trip to Salem and back, sheriffs say.

After two months at the mental institution, at a cost of roughly $80,000 to taxpayers, the woman was found fit for court. She pleaded guilty to riding public transportation without fare and was sentenced to probation.

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An inmate is escorted in the Washington County jail. Benjamin Brink/Staff.

A spokesman for the Washington County Sheriff’s Office, Deputy Brian van Kleef, said late transports are “a rare occurrence,” but added “it can happen.” Van Kleef said the delay in this case was caused by “coordination issues” between the jail and hospital and limited timeslots for driving inmates to Salem.

In another case, a Lane County man charged with a misdemeanor was admitted 18 days after the court ordered his treatment at the mental hospital – 11 days past the deadline. The court sent the man’s paperwork late, records show, and the county sheriff’s office declined to bring him to the hospital as soon as possible because it only drives its inmates there on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Capt. Clint Riley, the Lane County jail commander, said his deputies do all they can to quickly transport inmates to the state hospital. But there are only two days where staff are available to make the drive and lack of beds at the hospital complicates the procedure, he said.

READ MORE: Ways to lower costs, improve outcomes for Oregon’s mentally ill

Other cases are more difficult to analyze because journalists are unable to identify the defendants, so they can’t check court records to see what charges people faced nor the ultimate outcome of their cases.

In Jackson County, for example, a person charged with a misdemeanor sat in jail 43 days before he or she was admitted to the hospital for court-ordered treatment. “Jail received the order very late from the court,” state hospital notes say. “They only transport on Thursdays so they scheduled for the first available Thursday they had.”

Also in Jackson County, a person charged with a misdemeanor was in jail 36 days before gaining admission to the hospital. “Order came in very late,” according to the hospital notes.

Late court paperwork played a role in at least 18 late admissions from counties big and small, records show. Problems were as careless as a clerk forgetting to fax the judge’s order.

Jackson County Circuit Court Judge Lorenzo Mejia, who presides over many of the county’s criminal cases, said he was not aware of late paperwork problems until being contacted for this story.

“I’ll certainly look into it,” Mejia said. He promised to visit the court clerk’s office and see what was going on.

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A lack of available beds has contributed to problems admitting defendants to the Oregon State Hospital within court-mandated timelines. Beth Nakamura/Staff.

Another problem: not enough beds.

The state hospital has been flooded in recent years with mentally ill people ordered there for trial fitness treatment. Matteucci, the hospital superintendent, said the facility is beyond its 236-bed capacity for those patients. That lack of beds forces defendants to wait in jail.

Nathan Sickler, the Jackson County sheriff, said he is intensely frustrated by the waitlist.

“What are we supposed to do with them if there’s no bed space?” Sickler asked.

Even when beds do become available, sheriffs’ offices’ decisions to drive inmates from jails to the state hospital only on select days contributed significantly to tardy admissions, records show.

Sickler, for example, said his small department doesn’t have the manpower to drive inmates to the state hospital more frequently.

“This isn’t just a jaunt across town to drop somebody off,” Sickler said. It’s a four-hour drive from his jail in Medford to the hospital in Salem. The trips take two deputies off other tasks, he said.

None of the people sitting in jail, waiting for entry to the hospital, had been convicted on their charges. Instead, they had been ordered to the mental institution for trial fitness treatment, a little-known process spotlighted by recent stories in The Oregonian/OregonLive.

An investigation published in January showed how mentally ill homeless people charged with low-level crimes are institutionalized at the state hospital for trial fitness treatment over long periods. The care is hugely expensive and tends to offer little or no lasting benefits, in part because patients don't receive transition plans or stepped-down care after they are returned to face charges, the news organization found.

READ MORE: "How Oregon ensnares mentally ill people charged with low-level crimes"

Every person charged with a crime has a legal right to be of sound enough mind to assist their defense. It’s under that premise that the trial fitness process exists.

In the 2003 appeals court decision setting the seven-day deadline to get people out of jail and into the hospital, the judges upheld a decision from Oregon’s federal district court.

District Court Judge Owen Panner, who died recently, had ruled that lengthy stays in jail for mentally ill people in need of trial fitness treatment are illegal.

"After a trial on the merits, this court concluded the indefinite imprisonment of persons deemed unfit to proceed and in need of treatment is unjust," Panner wrote in his original 2002 opinion. "There is no rationalization that passes constitutional muster" for keeping those people from medical care, the decision said.

Continued violations of that order are unacceptable, said Sarah Radcliffe, managing attorney at Disability Rights Oregon, the group that brought the original lawsuit resulting in Panner’s decision.

“To be stuck in jail in those harmful circumstances for an arbitrary reason like administrative delay, lack of bed capacity, problems with transportation – that violates individuals’ due process rights,” Radcliffe said.

Radcliffe said her organization has not ruled out filing suit over the late admissions, calling the option “certainly something that's on the table.”

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Chief Justice Martha Walters, third from left, pictured among the justices of the Oregon Supreme Court. Photo courtesy Oregon Judicial Department.

In the meantime, Disability Rights Oregon is working with state and county officials to try to reduce the number of mentally ill people charged with crimes and put in jail in the first place, which Radcliffe said could ease the state hospital waitlist.

Walters, the chief justice, endorsed that vision in her statement.

“Communities need to examine whether it is appropriate to have these people in the criminal justice system in general,” she said, adding that she is committed to efforts underway to find non-jail options that are “more effective and more humane.”

“Charging mentally ill people with a crime,” Walters said, “is not always the best way to address problem behavior or keep the public safe.”

-- Gordon R. Friedman

GFriedman@Oregonian.com; 503-221-8209