ACLU sues California over refusal to disclose details of deaths of defendants on the IST waitlist
Courthouse News reports that the ACLU sued the Department of State Hospitals in April 2024 for failing to comply with public records requests about the deaths of people declared incompetent to stand trial who were waiting in jail for state treatment beds. According to the complaint, about 35 such people died in custody between 2018 and 2023.
The department acknowledged the deaths but declined to say how people died or how long they had been on the waitlist, citing privacy, and heavily redacted the documents it did release. An ACLU attorney said the department had insulated itself from public scrutiny.
The suit follows the Stiavetti litigation, which set a 28-day admission deadline that the state was due to meet by February 2024, and tests how much transparency the public gets about harm on the waitlist.
Source: ACLU sues California Department of State Hospitals over mortality records of mentally ill prisoners — Courthouse News Service
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