Federal judge holds Oregon in contempt, orders daily fines over competency delays
U.S. District Judge Adrienne Nelson found Oregon's health agency in contempt of the Mink v. Brown injunction and ordered $500-per-person, per-day fines for any jailed defendant held past the required seven-day admission window. Average wait times had climbed to roughly 20.7 days by the time of the ruling.
Coming more than two decades after the original injunction, the ruling showed the same pattern seen in Washington's Trueblood case just a few years earlier: an aging consent order, rising referral volume, and a court eventually turning to ongoing financial penalties when structural fixes weren't enough.
Source: Federal judge finds Oregon in contempt over mental health care delays for people in jail — Jefferson Public Radio, by Amelia Templeton
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