Los Angeles Times documents long jail waits for incompetent defendants as California's wait averages 141 days
The Los Angeles Times reviewed a decade of filings and interviews and found a persistent pattern: defendants declared incompetent to stand trial sit in jail, often in solitary, long past the time courts have said is constitutional. Department of State Hospitals data showed 1,768 such detainees awaiting transfer in June 2022, up from 1,443 in July 2021, with the average wait at 141 days compared with 63 in September 2019.
The story traces the Stiavetti litigation, in which an Alameda County judge in 2019 ordered the state to cut average waits to 60 days and then 28 days, an order upheld on appeal. The state has since asked for pauses citing COVID-19, and a new judge extended deadlines in December 2021 before reopening evidence in August 2022 on the state's request to drop most intermediate benchmarks. Individual cases, including a Kern County man held more than a year and a Fresno man held nearly a year, illustrate the toll.
It also notes the state's jail-based treatment programs, which officials say are expanding but which advocates criticize as a poor substitute for hospital or community care.
Source: ‘You can’t get out’: Mentally ill languish in California jails without trial or treatment — Los Angeles Times, by Kevin Rector
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