Competency referrals have roughly doubled in Washington over a decade
A data-driven feature found that competency-evaluation referrals statewide had roughly doubled between 2013 and 2022, with misdemeanor referrals alone climbing from about 1,500 to 3,671 a year. The growth was overwhelming a system the Trueblood litigation had already forced the state to rebuild once.
The piece illustrated a dynamic seen in multiple other states in this backfill: legislative and legal fixes aimed at a fixed-size problem were being outpaced by rising referral volume, meaning compliance deadlines kept slipping even as the state added capacity.
Source: The puzzling rise of defendants too sick to stand trial in WA — The Spokesman-Review, by Esmy Jimenez, Seattle Times
← Back to the map