Post and Courier investigation finds South Carolina defendants wait about eight months for competency restoration
The newspaper's investigation found that mentally ill defendants languish in South Carolina jails for months while waiting for competency restoration, with the delay averaging eight months after the Office of Mental Health receives an order. G. Werber Bryan Psychiatric Hospital, the state's only public forensic hospital, has 213 beds for defendants, a number unchanged for decades, and had a 165-person waiting list in March.
The reporters tallied at least 102 deaths of mentally ill people in state jails since 2015 and described court orders for restoration rising nearly 50 percent since the pandemic. Restoration itself took defendants an average of 130 days last year. Legal experts quoted say the delays are unconstitutional and expose the state to a costly class action.
The series is the most detailed recent accounting of South Carolina's competency pipeline.
Source: Hellish conditions, damaging delays and uncertain justice fuel mental health crisis in SC jails — The Post and Courier (Aiken Standard copy), by Glenn Smith, Jocelyn Grzeszczak and Alan Hovorka
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