PIERCE COUNTY, Wash. — A Pierce County judge ruled in favor of a lawsuit against the state's Department of Social and Health Service, ordering it to immediately evaluate patients with behavioral health conditions.
The lawsuit also orders the department to provide sufficient community notice when patients are released from treatment.
“Today’s ruling affirms the state's basic obligation to evaluate the behavioral health needs of people in the legal system who can not be tried because they lack the ability to aid in their own defense and to give them an opportunity for meaningful treatment. It does not, of course, solve the very real capacity problems in the behavioral health system born of long-term funding and workforce shortages,” said King County Executive Dow Constantine. “With today’s ruling, counties across Washington can move forward with greater clarity, working with the state and other jurisdictions on the funding and strategies to meet the needs of the people we all serve.”
Under the order from Judge Michael Schwartz that was issued Friday morning, the Department of Social and Health Service must evaluate all new conversion patients. Those patients are those whose criminal charges were dismissed after being found incompetent to stand trial.
Originally, prosecutors from 22 Washington state counties filed the lawsuit over the agency's public policy decision to stop evaluating and treating mentally ill criminal defendants who have their charges dropped because they don't understand the charges against them.
After the lawsuit was filed, Pierce County Superior Court granted the motion for preliminary injunction. Another six counties joined the suit.
Representatives from the counties said denying access for people whose charges have been dropped is a violation of state law, puts an untenable strain on county resources and puts public safety at risk. When charges are dropped against a defendant and the state won’t offer mental health treatment at a psychiatric facility, such as Western State Hospital in Pierce County, oftentimes the only recourse is to return the former defendant to the community.
As the KING 5 Investigators have reported in their series "Mentally Ill, Waiting in Jail," wait times for mentally ill defendants to access treatment to understand their charges reached all-time highs over the last two years. Currently, defendants are waiting approximately seven months in jail to access a bed at Western State Hospital. State law and federal court orders call for a wait time of no longer than seven days.
The Department of Social and Health Services released the statement below following the ruling:
"As we have previously stated throughout this litigation, our intent is to follow state law to the best of our ability while continuing to care for the state’s most complex patients when others are unwilling or unable to provide such care. However, this preliminary order puts us at odds with the federal court order to limit admissions to the state hospitals. We will also continue to follow the 30-day notice requirement to counties contained in the Involuntary Treatment Act statute. While we are disappointed in today’s ruling, we will continue to assess how this impacts our patients and will continue to identify opportunities to add additional bed capacity."