Federal judge refuses to dismiss suit over jail waits for Louisiana defendants found incompetent
Judge Shelly Dick denied the Department of Health and Hospitals' motion to dismiss in the case brought by the Advocacy Center and detainee Monica Jackson. The suit, consolidated with a separate one by defendants found not guilty by reason of insanity, challenges delays in moving people ruled incompetent to stand trial out of parish jails and into treatment at the Eastern Louisiana Mental Health System.
The state argued that the earlier 2010 litigation over the same problem barred the new claims, that overcrowding justified the delays, and that detainees received medication in jail while they waited. The court disagreed on the prior-litigation point, noting that this suit covered 22 detainees on the restoration waiting list as of October 23, 2015, with the longest wait at 100 days, and that those facts were distinct from the 2010 case. It found the due process and disability-discrimination claims adequately pleaded.
The ruling matters because it kept the state's recurring forensic-bed shortage in front of a federal court, setting up the September 2016 settlement that imposed a 15-day admission deadline.
Source: RULING ON MOTION TO DISMISS — U.S. District Court, Middle District of Louisiana (via GovInfo), by U.S. District Court, M.D. La.
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