Judge finds Washington in contempt again, this time over slow in-jail competency evaluations
Judge Marsha Pechman ruled in October 2017 that the Department of Social and Health Services had failed to meet the two-week deadline for in-jail competency evaluations. She imposed $750 a day for each person waiting beyond 14 days, rising to $1,500 a day after another week. The Associated Press noted that earlier contempt fines over restoration delays had already topped $30.6 million.
The order cited agency data: only 46.2 percent of people in jail received timely evaluations as of June 2017, while monthly evaluation orders had risen from an average of 222 in 2015 to 291 in 2017. The court found that with 38 evaluators the agency should have been able to keep pace if each completed ten evaluations a month, and concluded that the state had made a choice not to put class members' constitutional rights first when deciding how many evaluators to employ. It directed DSHS to hire more evaluators, broaden who may perform evaluations, raise productivity and pay outside evaluators competitive rates. The agency defended its record, citing a more than 50 percent increase in forensic evaluators and new outstation and mobile-technology measures.
The ruling widened the Trueblood contempt regime from inpatient restoration to the evaluation stage and put evaluator workforce at the center of the dispute.
Source: Judge holds Washington state mental health agency in contempt, orders fines — The Spokesman-Review (Associated Press), by Martha Bellisle (Associated Press)
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