Trueblood v. Wash. State Dep't of Soc. & Health Servs.

Citation73 F.Supp.3d 1311
Decision Date22 December 2014
Docket NumberCase No. C14–1178 MJP.
PartiesCassie Cordell TRUEBLOOD, et al., Plaintiffs, v. WASHINGTON STATE DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL AND HEALTH SERVICES, et al., Defendants.
CourtUnited States District Courts. 9th Circuit. United States District Court (Western District of Washington)

Anita Khandelwal, Public Defender Association, Christopher Robert Carney, Kenan Lee Isitt, Sean P. Gillespie, Carney Gillespie Isitt PLLP, David R. Carlson, Emily Cooper, Anna Catherine Guy, Disability Rights Washington, La Rond Baker, Margaret Chen, American Civil Liberties Union of WA, Sarah A. Dunne, ACLU of Washington, Seattle, WA, for Plaintiffs.

Amber Lea Leaders, John K. McIlhenny, Nicholas A. Williamson, Sarah Jane Coats, Washington State Attorney General, Olympia, WA, for Defendants.

ORDER GRANTING PLAINTIFFS' MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT

MARSHA J. PECHMAN, Chief Judge.

THIS MATTER comes before the Court on Plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment on the question of whether current in-jail waiting times for court-ordered competency evaluation and restoration services violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. (Dkt. No. 87.) Having considered the Parties' briefing and all related papers, the Court finds the current in-jail wait time experienced by Plaintiffs and class members to be far beyond any constitutional boundary and therefore GRANTS the motion.

Summary

In this case, Plaintiffs argue that Defendants, the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services and two state hospitals, Western State Hospital and Eastern State Hospital, are violating the constitutional rights of certain pretrial criminal defendants by failing to provide those individuals with timely services. State law requires that Defendants provide competency evaluation and competency restoration services to people who have been charged with a crime, but who state court judges believe may be mentally incompetent to stand trial.

Once a court orders that an individual be evaluated for competency or that an incompetent person receive treatment so as to restore competency, that individual waits in the local jail until Defendants are able to provide those services. The hospitals have been unable to provide services within the timeframe suggested by the legislature, seven days, because of an increase in the number of individuals requiring such services and because of a lack of resources, staff, and facilities. The average in-jail waiting times now range from two weeks at the low end to almost two months on the high end.

As the Court explains in greater detail below, Defendants' failure to provide these court-ordered services within a reasonable amount of time violates the rights guaranteed by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Due Process Clause protects the liberty interests of individuals to be free from incarceration absent a criminal conviction, and to receive restorative treatment when they are being incarcerated due to mental incompetence. Defendants' failure to provide timely services to these detainees has caused them to be incarcerated, sometimes for months, in conditions that erode their mental health, causing harm and making it even less likely that they will eventually be able to stand trial. Because this failure violates the due process rights of criminal defendants who are mentally ill or suspected to be mentally ill, the Court grants Plaintiffs' motion and declares that Defendants have violated their constitutional rights. At trial, the Court will hear facts to determine what amount of time detainees can be made to wait without violating their due process rights, and will fashion a remedy accordingly.

Background

This summary judgment motion is part of a class action brought on behalf of people facing criminal charges who have been found to be, or are suspected to be, mentally incompetent to stand trial. Following a court order that they be evaluated for competency or provided with competency restoration services, these detainees wait in city or county jail until they can be accepted into one of two state hospitals charged by state law with performing competency services for criminal defendants. RCW 10.77 et seq. (2014). At this point, their criminal prosecutions are stayed until they regain competency; if they cannot regain competency, they must be found not guilty by reason of insanity. The hospitals, Western State Hospital (“WSH”) and Eastern State Hospital (“ESH”), are chronically short on beds and staff, and thus the waiting time for transfer—not to exceed seven days under a target deadline set by the legislature—can now exceed sixty days. For the period of November 1, 2012 to April 30, 2013, individuals waited in jail on average twenty-nine days for evaluation and fifteen days for restoration at WSH, and fifty days for evaluation and seventeen days for restoration at ESH. (Dkt. No. 42–3 at 51.) The legislature's target of wait time of seven days or less was met less than fifteen percent of the time. (Id. )

Plaintiffs detail the alarming conditions faced by many mentally ill pretrial detainees while in jail awaiting transfer. (Dkt. No. 87 at 7–10.) Without access to medication and facing the extraordinary stresses of being incarcerated, some detainees resort to harming themselves or others. (Dkt. No. 47 at 3–5.) Some detainees withdraw within themselves, refusing to eat and urinating and defecating on themselves rather than interact with guards and other detainees. (Dkt. No. 52 at 3–5.) Some are forcibly medicated or restrained so as to allow for guards to feed and clean them, and suffer physical injuries from the process. (Dkt. No. 42 at 4–5.) Jails are often not equipped to deal with people with mental health issues, and overwhelmed guards resort to placing mentally ill detainees in solitary confinement, for their own safety or the safety of others. (Dkt. No. 50–1 at 10–14). Alone for 22 to 23 hours a day and without access to medication, some of these detainees lose touch with reality—damage to their mental health that can take years of intensive mental health services to reverse. (Id. at 15–17.)

Defendants—WSH, ESH, and the State Department of Social and Health Services—concede that “current wait times for many criminal defendants are excessive and indefensible.” (Dkt. No. 95 at 3.) They argue, however, that other waiting periods are reasonable under the circumstances and thus comply with due process. Defendants detail the challenges they face, including a lack of qualified and/or licensed forensic psychologists who can perform competency evaluations and restoration services, concern for the safety of other patients and hospital staff when potentially dangerous arrestees are too hastily transferred to civil units, and the lack of physically acceptable spaces which can be secured sufficiently to serve those facing criminal charges. (Dkt. No. 95 at 3–7.)

Plaintiffs argue that Defendants' lack of funds, staff, or facilities cannot justify infringement of the liberty interests of those incarcerated, and now seek summary judgment on the question of whether current wait times violate due process.

Discussion
I. Legal Standards
A. Summary Judgment

Summary judgment is proper where “the movant shows that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(a). The moving party bears the initial burden of demonstrating the absence of a genuine issue of fact. Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 323, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986). In assessing whether a party has met its burden, the underlying evidence must be viewed in the light most favorable to the non-moving party. Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986). All material facts alleged by the non-moving party are assumed to be true, and all inferences must be drawn in that party's favor. Davis v. Team Elec. Co., 520 F.3d 1080, 1088 (9th Cir.2008).

B. Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment

‘The Due Process Clause ... provides heightened protection against government interference with certain fundamental rights and liberty interests,’ ... ‘forbid[ding] the government to infringe certain “fundamental” liberty interests at all, no matter what process is provided, unless the infringement is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest.’ Lopez–Valenzuela v. Arpaio, 770 F.3d 772, 780 (9th Cir.2014) (en banc) (quoting Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702, 719–20, 117 S.Ct. 2258, 138 L.Ed.2d 772 (1997) and Reno v. Flores, 507 U.S. 292, 302, 113 S.Ct. 1439, 123 L.Ed.2d 1 (1993) ) (emphasis in original). The Supreme Court has long recognized that individuals have a fundamental liberty interest in being free from incarceration absent a criminal conviction, and that there are corresponding constitutional limits on pretrial detention. See Lopez–Valenzuela, 770 F.3d at 777–78, 780–81.

“Incapacitated criminal defendants have liberty interests in freedom from incarceration and in restorative treatment.” Oregon Advocacy Ctr. v. Mink, 322 F.3d 1101, 1121 (9th Cir.2003). “Because incapacitated criminal defendants have not been convicted of any crime, they have an interest in freedom from incarceration. They also have a liberty interest in receiving restorative treatment.” Id. [A] person charged by a State with a criminal offense who is committed solely on account of his incapacity to proceed to trial cannot be held more than the reasonable period of time necessary to determine whether there is a substantial probability that he will attain that capacity in the foreseeable future. If it is determined that this is not the case, then the State must either institute the customary civil commitment proceeding that would be required to commit indefinitely any other citizen, or release the defendant. Furthermore, even if it is determined that the defendant probably soon will be able to stand trial, his continued commitment must be justified by progress toward that...

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