Maryland judge fines health department $608,000 over delays moving jailed defendants to psychiatric hospitals
Judge Nancy Purpura, citing the 2018 amendment that lets courts sanction the department, concluded that money penalties were the only way to push the agency to treat the deadline as urgent. Defendants found too ill to stand trial were waiting 180 days or more for a hospital bed, well past the 10-day limit. The sanction covered five Baltimore County detainees and would keep growing while the delays continued.
The health department argued that it was doing what it could and that fines would only hinder compliance. Its officials testified that court orders had hit an exponential curve, with 1,126 admission orders in 2023 compared with 865 the year before and about 500 a year four or five years earlier. They said the five adult facilities, with 1,056 beds in all, were full and the waitlist had reached a record 202, and described a plan to add 44 beds at the Thomas B. Finan Center by the end of 2025.
Baltimore County detention staff described a 52-person mental health unit where five people were waiting for a state transfer.
Source: People with severe mental illness are languishing in jail. Now the state has to pay — The Baltimore Banner, by Ben Conarck, Meredith Cohn and Dylan Segelbaum
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