Two top Oklahoma state officials are about to settle a class-action lawsuit accusing the state of not providing mental health services to people waiting for services at the county jail.
The lawsuit was filed in 2023 on behalf of four plaintiffs who had been held in county jails for months awaiting court-ordered mental health services known as competency-based treatment.
The proposed consent order from Attorney General Gentner Drummond and the plaintiff’s legal team includes calls for additional staffing and training and is intended to reduce wait times for appropriate health care.
It also set aside $4.1 million in the state budget for the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services to handle more complaints.
The proposal, however, faced immediate pressure from the governor, who along with a senior health official, said “he has not and will not He agreed to make Oklahomans foot the bill for the bad execution of the law.”
A hearing for a preliminary injunction is scheduled for Aug. 15. Depending on the results of that legal step, then the proposal will go before the national review board.
“We must ask why the AG is pushing for a settlement that will result in an immediate win for plaintiffs’ attorneys at the expense of Oklahoma taxpayers,” Gov. Kevin Stitt added.
The suspension comes as the Justice Department continues its investigation into the state, and Oklahoma City and its police department regarding their responses to mental health crises. The agency is investigating whether these centers lack community-based mental health services that lead to unnecessary hospitalizations and police involvement.
The federal lawsuit alleges that people in Oklahoma’s prisons are waiting for capacity improvement reviews to wait for years if not years in some cases — charges that Gentner called “inevitable.”
Colleen McCarty, an attorney with the Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, a plaintiff in the federal lawsuit, said the plan consulted with well-known mental health experts to help evaluate and discuss the building process. New Oklahoma procedures for handling mental health trials.
“It was a huge win for the state of Oklahoma,” McCarty said of the settlement proposal. And it’s a shame that we can’t go forward with what everyone has agreed on.
Mental illness and the Oklahoma justice system
Before a person accused of a crime can go to trial or plead, the court must ensure that he or she is of sound mind.
In Oklahoma, this means that the person must understand the charges and assist in their defense. If a lawyer, judge, or prosecutor doubts the defendant’s competence, he or she may request an examination. Often, those diagnosed with incompetence have a traumatic brain injury, developmental disability, or severe mental illness. If they are declared incompetent, their criminal cases are suspended.
The lawsuit alleged that the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, which runs the state’s largest inpatient mental health facility, violated the plaintiffs’ Fourteen Amendments and the Americans with Disabilities Act by not providing them with timely and appropriate mental health treatment.
Paul DeMuro, lead counsel for the prosecution, described defendants with mental illnesses as some of the most vulnerable and powerless, adding that when they are held in county jails awaiting necessary care, these people legally trapped. They cannot go to trial or enter into a plea agreement while awaiting “rehabilitation” in prison.
DeMuro said the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services is rightfully punishing these defendants for their mental illness by not providing care to restore their abilities.
“Prisons, by their very nature, are places of punishment,” DeMuro said in a statement. “They are not designed or equipped to provide rehabilitative treatment for people with mental illness.”
Ideally, people will be able to get treatment for their mental health before they end up in jail or prison, said Zack Stoycoff, executive director of the Healthy Minds Policy Initiative, a Tulsa-based nonprofit that advocates for investment. of mental health. But the donor shortage affects more than 90 percent of all Oklahomans, he added.
Oklahoma is the third worst state in the nation for the percentage of residents living in an area with a shortage of mental health providers, according to the US Health Resources and Services Administration.
“Prison is not a place to get mental health treatment,” Stoycoff said. “In an ideal world we would be treating people in the community, in their homes and in their lives, living healthy and successful lives in recovery. In an ideal world they wouldn’t be in a situation where systems wouldn’t fail so long and so systematically that crime would occur.”
A recent report by The Frontier and The Marshall Project found that Oklahoma prisons that use Turn Key Health Clinics, a provider of medical care for correctional facilities, have seen at least 50 deaths in the past decade. Many questions about the company’s practices were raised, including whether staff were providing the right level of care for people with mental illnesses behind bars.
Nationwide, the number of people waiting for rehabilitation evaluations in prisons is increasing. Based on available national data, an estimated 36,000 people in the early 1970s required competency evaluations after being charged with a crime. By 2020, that number has risen to an estimated 94,000.
The number of Oklahomans seeking exams has also increased over the past 40 years. This is from the Oklahoma Forensic Center, the state’s only place for evaluations and housing for people awaiting criminal trial in a series of cases, according to the Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, a non-profit organization that Tulsa-based criminal justice advocate. More than 900 people in Oklahoma prisons across the state received testing in 2020, according to state data. That number has continued to increase over the years.
Appleseed’s McCarty said more than 400 people are currently waiting for the test, the largest list ever.
The epidemic has also caused large numbers of people to abandon their mental health practices and stop going to their doctors and therapists, McCarty added, saying those people could face criminal charges. of the law and are in prison now trying to get help.
He said: “People have lost their tools. “These are people who are pre-trial, they are all presumed innocent and they have been waiting a lot longer than their sentence would have been allowed if they had appealed.”
What would the proposed version do?
Attorney General Gentner Drummond proposed a five-year consent decree to settle the case and reform rehabilitation services.
The proposed amendment sets a strict 21-day waiting period for inmates to receive rehabilitation services. Other important features include:
- Re-evaluate the defendants waiting to receive court-ordered treatment. A qualified forensic examiner would perform this examination.
- Increase the number of inpatient beds dedicated to rehabilitation therapy.
- Create a continuing education program for Oklahoma Forensic Agency staff involved in treatment.
- Create an audit program which expedites the assessment and placement of the accused in proper care.
- Plan additional training with employees in the department.
If they sign, all parties have 90 days to come up with a comprehensive plan to begin implementing the changes. This could mean greater state spending on mental health services, heavy fines for the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services if they fail to meet deadlines, and payment of fees. plaintiff’s legal and court costs of approximately $742,500.
Drummond says this is the best way forward.
“If this case goes forward, there is no doubt that the government will face significant litigation risk that could cost taxpayers a lot,” he said in a statement. The proposed settlement will “fix a broken system that has been a travesty of justice,” the attorney general added.
Gov. Stitt, along with ODMHSAS commissioner Allie Friesen, said the proposal is not in the best interest of the state — not for the taxpayers or the defendants the department serves.
Friesen, who was appointed by Stitt in January to lead the department, believes he should be given more time to analyze and develop plans to improve rehabilitation services in Oklahoma, which he believes are needed. The class action lawsuit was filed before Friesen became department head.
“We need more than a week. We need at least nine months to understand what we are dealing with,” he said in a statement. He also expressed confusion when lawyers are involved in medical decisions, saying that this should be left to medical professionals.
But Stitt and Friesen are concerned about wasting taxpayers’ money and have pointed to continued efforts as improvements are made, , a city of more than 5,000 people about an hour northeast of Tulsa. .
What follows
McCarty and Appleseed are still hoping Stitt and Drummond can find a solution. He said the proposed solution was made carefully and with the help of mental health professionals across the country.
The proposal will have to be passed by joint resolution while the state Legislature is in session. If the Legislature does not act, the proposal could be heard by the National Contingency Action Board, made up of appointees from Stitt, Senate pro tem Greg Treat and House speaker Charles McCall.
All would need to sign for the proposal to proceed.
McCarty said if the proposal is not agreed to, the lawsuits will continue, and more people will be waiting.
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