Disability Law Center settles lawsuit over defendant wait times for Utah State Hospital

Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes

This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.

SALT LAKE CITY — The Disability Law Center has reached a preliminary agreement resolving a class-action lawsuit over lengthy wait times for mentally ill Utahns who are charged with crimes and need treatment at the Utah State Hospital for their cases to proceed.

In a joint press release, the nonprofit advocacy group and the Utah Department of Human Services announced a joint motion to settle the case, agreeing to terms that would create wait limits for defendants needing mental health treatment and continuing outreach efforts aimed at treating low-risk offenders in the community.

Wait times for those who have been charged with crimes but are found incompetent to face them in court have stretched to an average of three to six months, leaving mentally ill men and women warehoused in jails in the interim, according to reporting by KSL. The waits were considerably longer than those in other Western states.

The prolonged incarceration, typically in isolated or high-security confinement, led to continued decline for inmates while their families are plagued with uncertainty and worry, according to the investigation.

Under the agreement, the state would be required to reduce wait times for forensic treatment — treatment for those found incompetent to face the legal system — down to just 60 days within six months of the deal being signed by a judge, according to Aaron Kinikini, legal director of the Disability Law Center.

After that, the wait time would need to come down to 30 days by the year mark, Kinikini said, before hitting the goal wait time of just 14 days within 18 months of the deal being made.

A federal judge is expected to decide within approximately 45 days whether to accept the settlement. After that, the case would be stayed for five years while changes agreed upon as part of the deal are put in place, according to the release.

The Disability Law Center's class action lawsuit, filed in September 2015, alleges that in light of extended wait times, individuals needing treatment preparing them to proceed in their cases were being held for unconstitutional lengths of time — longer than the possible time they could be sentenced to if convicted.

In a prepared statement, Kinikini, said the proposed settlement would require the state to commit "substantial monies" toward solutions to the wait list and improve its treatment system for so-called forensic patients, those needing care before they can proceed in court.

"The human stories behind this class-action lawsuit have been tragic and disturbing," Kinikini said. "Due to a chronic lack of funding in the Utah State Hospital system, people charged, but not convicted of crimes, too ill to proceed to trial, waited for months-on-end in our state's county jails after being court-ordered into treatment to restore their competence."

Ann Silverberg Williamson, executive director of the Utah Department of Human Services, emphasized in the release the state's commitment to caring for those in the criminal justice system who are dealing with mental illness and substance abuse disorders.

The state is seeking to implement efficient and nationally accepted solutions that incorporate support from family members, neighbors, courts, law enforcement and treatment providers, Williamson said.

"The complexity of solutions to overcome mental health suffering cannot be overstated," Williamson said. "The greatest help begins when these individuals are not stigmatized and receive professional help through local services before escalating to involvement in matters of personal safety and community safety."

Though in its early stages, Williamson noted that the department's Outreach Program, which has been providing competency treatment in jails or in the community rather than at the state hospital since it was established in 2016, is already showing promise.

According to the release, the program has already resolved more than 90 cases at a cost of $16 per day, far less than $500 per day for treatment at the Utah State Hospital.

Additionally, the state will press forward with plans for a treatment effort within the Salt Lake County Jail. The legislature has appropriated $3 million for the project.