State judges begin fining Washington over jail mental-health waits
Before the federal Trueblood v. DSHS class action reshaped Washington's competency system, individual county judges in King and Pierce counties had already begun holding the state Department of Social and Health Services in contempt for leaving mentally ill jail detainees waiting weeks for a competency evaluation or hospital bed. Judges imposed daily fines in the $200-to-$500 range, and by late 2014 the state had racked up roughly $100,000 in sanctions.
The pattern set the stage for the much larger federal case that would follow within months: a class of jailed defendants suing DSHS over the same underlying problem, this time in a single consolidated action rather than county by county.
Source: Judges hold state in contempt for jail waitlists — HeraldNet, by Martha Bellisle, Associated Press
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