Inmate dies in San Luis Obispo jail while waiting for a bed; local reporting shows long jail waits for incompetent defendants
The Santa Maria Sun opened with the January 2017 death of a 36-year-old Atascadero man with schizophrenia who had been ordered to a county mental health facility on January 10 but was still in the San Luis Obispo County Jail twelve days later because no bed was available. Court records the paper obtained showed other defendants found incompetent had also waited in the jail for weeks or months.
The county's mental health facility has just 16 beds, only some usable for these defendants, and state hospital space is similarly limited. A sample of county cases filed from 2014 to 2016 showed waits ranging from four to 122 days, including a burglary defendant who waited 104 days for transfer to Atascadero State Hospital. Defense attorneys described using orders to show cause to push state hospitals to accept clients, and the sheriff said the jail is the one place that cannot turn people away.
The piece is a rare detailed local account of how California's statewide waitlist plays out in a single county jail, including the limits of jail care (such as the inability to medicate involuntarily).
Source: Waiting behind bars: Inmates declared mentally unfit to stand trial languish in jails, awaiting treatment — Santa Maria Sun, by Chris McGuinness
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