John Haasjes was having a foul Christmas.
It was 2020, and he thought his downstairs neighbor was spying on him. They exchanged phrases, and she or he referred to as the cops. He was arrested on suspicion of constructing a verbal menace and booked right into a Kern County jail.
Haasjes has a developmental delay and schizoaffective dysfunction. The 58-year-old Tehachapi man has been out and in of psychological well being amenities most of his life. However he had by no means been convicted of a criminal offense, and he stated he didn’t actually perceive the felony cost in opposition to him.
Authorities quickly acknowledged the identical. In March 2021, Haasjes was declared “incompetent to face trial.”
The authorized designation meant Haasjes couldn’t perceive the court docket course of for figuring out his guilt or innocence. It meant he was entitled to psychological well being therapy earlier than he may stand trial. It additionally ought to have meant his immediate switch to a state hospital or therapy program to obtain care — however it didn’t.
Like 1000’s of different mentally sick detainees incarcerated throughout California in recent times, Haasjes as an alternative languished in jail, the place he was denied trial or correct therapy from the Division of State Hospitals for greater than a yr. He was solely transferred to a hospital in February, after his cousin, a retired social employee, testified about his lack of care earlier than state lawmakers, and his case was all of the sudden fast-tracked.
Others have fared a lot worse.
In line with a decade of authorized filings reviewed by The Occasions and interviews with psychological well being advocates, public defenders, members of the family of the mentally sick and former detainees, Haasjes’ expertise suits inside a a lot bigger sample of neglect involving a few of the most susceptible folks in state custody.
On the coronary heart of the issue is a persistent failure by state officers to sufficiently increase state hospitals or different community-based care choices regardless of surging numbers of incompetent prison detainees and a string of court docket orders mandating the state switch such defendants out of jails quicker.
With out the wanted beds, mentally sick defendants are being left behind bars and with out substantive care for much longer than the courts have stated is constitutional. Whereas their prison instances and rights to a speedy trial are placed on maintain primarily based on their diseases, they’re denied the companies that may restore them to competency and permit their instances to proceed.
In different phrases, they and their advocates say, they’re trapped within the prison justice system with no entry to justice.
“You may’t get out,” stated Haasjes. “They only declare you incompetent. There’s no bail. There’s nothing.”
A persistent downside
The state has been getting sued for failing to correctly deal with mentally incompetent detainees for greater than a decade, each inside native jurisdictions and as a part of a statewide lawsuit introduced in 2015 by the American Civil Liberties Union and the households of a number of incompetent detainees.
Within the ACLU case, often called Stiavetti vs. Clendenin, the households have lambasted state officers for permitting the mistreatment to persist for years regardless of claiming psychological well being as a legislative and budgetary precedence. They’ve accused the state and a few of its native counterparts not solely of violating detainees’ constitutional rights, however exacerbating their psychological well being points by denying them care.
State judges have largely agreed.
In March 2019, Alameda County Superior Court docket Decide Winifred Smith gave the state a yr to scale back the statewide common wait time in jail for incompetent felony detainees to 60 days. She gave the state three years to deliver the wait time down to twenty-eight days and set a number of benchmarks in between.
The state appealed Smith’s order, however a state appellate court docket upheld it final yr. The California Supreme Court docket declined to overview that call — leaving the order intact.
The state saved combating, nonetheless. In November, attorneys for the Division of State Hospitals requested for a “pause” on the order’s necessities given the COVID-19 pandemic, which they stated had compelled the state to scale back admissions into its hospitals at the same time as referrals of incompetent detainees have been rising “dramatically.”
In December, Alameda County Superior Court docket Decide Evelio Grillo granted the state an extension, requiring the common wait time to be decreased as an alternative to 60 days by final month, 45 days by February, 33 days by August and 28 days by February 2024.
State officers didn’t meet final month’s deadline, and so they have advised the court docket will probably be “not possible” to fulfill the opposite middleman deadlines as a result of the pandemic is “catastrophically irritating its capability to supply companies to its affected person inhabitants.”
In a movement opposed by the ACLU, the state requested the court docket in June to get rid of all however the remaining, 28-day deadline in 2024.
Because the state has fought the order, situations have solely gotten worse.
In line with the Division of State Hospitals, the state had 1,768 incompetent detainees in jail and awaiting switch to a state hospital or different care facility as of June, which was a considerable enhance from the 1,443 it had in July 2021. The typical wait time for these detainees stood at 141 days, up from a mean of 63 in September 2019.
The state has stated it’s attempting to scale back the wait occasions, however wants extra time — partially so newly allotted funding may be put to make use of. Officers say they’ve been rising the variety of beds for incompetent detainees, particularly in jails, in what are referred to as “jail-based competency therapy” packages. However they acknowledge there nonetheless should not sufficient for the inflow of detainees.
Attorneys for the ACLU and different advocates say the state’s arguments ring hole — or worse, elevate extra issues.
They level to the state’s historical past of violating court docket orders mandating higher look after the mentally sick. They observe the issue of unconstitutional wait occasions predated the pandemic. They are saying the state’s suggestion that it’s going to one way or the other meet the 28-day requirement in 2024 with out hitting the intermediate benchmarks is nonsensical. They usually have criticized the state’s “jail-based” competency packages as a poor different to hospitals or neighborhood placements.
With a lot in dispute, Decide Grillo issued a brand new order on Aug. 30 that reopened discovery — or proof gathering — across the impression of COVID-19 or different recent points on the state’s capability to adjust to the present deadlines. And he set a date in March for listening to the state’s request to get rid of most of them.
Severe ramifications
Stephanie Stiavetti, the lead plaintiff within the ACLU case, determined to sue the state after studying that her mentally sick brother — recognized solely as “N” in court docket filings to guard his id — had suffered abuse in a Contra Costa County jail whereas awaiting an overdue switch to a state psychological well being facility.
“N,” who had been arrested on suspicion of resisting sheriff’s deputies, remained in jail for a month after he was ordered dedicated to a state hospital, based on court docket data. There, he grew to become “confused, depressed and agitated,” received into fights with correctional employees and different inmates, and ended up segregated and deteriorating additional in a solitary cell that he was solely allowed out of “as soon as each a number of days,” the data say.
In an interview with The Occasions, Stiavetti stated what her brother went via amounted to torture and deeply riled her as a protecting older sister who occurs to work within the psychological well being area. She stated the state’s continued resistance to creating enhancements eight years later additionally angered her.
“Whereas they make excuses, individuals are getting harm,” she stated.
The toll incarceration takes on mentally sick detainees, who can not at all times successfully advocate for themselves or articulate their very own issues, is devastating, stated former detainees, their households and different psychological well being consultants and advocates in interviews with The Occasions.
Kim Pederson, a senior lawyer with Incapacity Rights California, stated leaving mentally sick folks behind bars with out therapy doesn’t merely delay their care, however will “exacerbate any preexisting psychological well being situation” they’ve.
Many incompetent detainees wrestle with being confined to small or shared areas, comparable to jail cells, Pederson stated. Many wrestle to comply with the strict guidelines that outline life in jail. They find yourself dealing with extra punishments — together with solitary confinement, which may be traumatizing for any inmate however particularly these with psychological sickness. Mentally sick detainees are additionally extra vulnerable to abuse from different inmates.
Demetria Simpson’s son Kevron Harris, who she stated has a number of diagnoses of psychological sickness and was declared incompetent to face trial, spent almost a yr in jail earlier than lastly being transferred to a jail-based therapy program final month.
He was far worse off for having languished in jail so lengthy, his mom stated.
Harris, 26, was arrested on two misdemeanor prices in Fresno final September. Inside weeks of being jailed, he was charged with felony battery of a custodial officer. His mom stated she believes the incident was the results of Harris struggling a psychological disaster in a setting the place nobody — together with the correctional officers — knew learn how to reply.
Simpson stated her son was positioned in solitary confinement afterward. They didn’t converse for 30 days. When she noticed him subsequent in court docket through a video stream, she stated, he had accidents to his head — together with large knots and bruising — which have by no means been defined to her.
In line with court docket data, Harris had his first competency listening to in October, was declared incompetent by the court docket in March, and was ordered to take antipsychotic medicine and be dedicated to a state hospital in April.
In Might, Harris was nonetheless in jail. He referred to as his mom to say he couldn’t deal with it anymore and would like to die, she stated.
“I used to be telling him not to surrender,” she stated.
Simpson stated she was grateful when she discovered her son had lastly been transferred right into a jail-based therapy program final month, however she stays involved about his future.
The final time Harris was arrested, jailed after which launched with out receiving the psychological well being therapy he wanted, she stated, he rapidly landed again in jail.
“It’s like a revolving door,” she stated.
Compliance points
This isn’t the primary time the state has been in violation of a court docket order mandating higher therapy of mentally sick defendants in jail.
Stephanie Common is an assistant public defender in Contra Costa County who helped join Stiavetti to the ACLU after representing her brother. She has been combating the Division of State Hospitals over the difficulty for a decade, and she or he helped win a court docket order in 2014 requiring incompetent detainees there be transferred into care settings inside 60 days.
Since then, nonetheless, the state has routinely violated that order, which is “crushing” for her shoppers, Common stated. “I see them as they’re ready for therapy within the jail simply getting sicker and sicker.”
Los Angeles County — dwelling to the nation’s largest county jail system — has been criticized by the U.S. Division of Justice for offering insufficient and harmful look after mentally sick detainees in its jails since at the very least 1997. In 2015, the county and the Justice Division entered right into a settlement settlement mandating sweeping reforms.
Nevertheless, the county has not complied with that settlement, and 1000’s nonetheless aren’t getting the care they need to in a system the place about 40% of inmates have been recognized with psychological sickness. In separate litigation final week, the ACLU alleged “barbaric” and unconstitutional situations for defendants at an inmate reception middle in downtown L.A.
A whole bunch of incompetent detainees are awaiting switch out of jails in L.A. County, which state officers have stated accounts for 30% of all incompetence referrals to the state hospital system.
The order within the ACLU case mandating quicker switch occasions statewide was issued and upheld by the courts with a few of these previous failings in thoughts. State officers have acknowledged previous failures however stated they’re taking the difficulty critically now and dealing arduous to enhance the system general, with the assistance of the counties.
In a press release to The Occasions, the Division of State Hospitals stated it has already added a whole bunch of latest beds for incompetent detainees, together with via diversion packages in 21 counties, a community-based therapy program in L.A. County and jail-based therapy packages throughout the state.
It stated it launched a brand new “reevaluation program” to reassess detained people who might need been restored to competency whereas in jail, with a purpose to take away them from the ready checklist in that case. Advocates allege the method is already being misused to artificially cut back the ready checklist by eradicating individuals who nonetheless want care.
The state additionally pointed to $535 million within the newest fiscal yr funds — and extra in coming years — to enhance jail-based companies and increase community-based restoration and diversion packages by some 5,000 beds over the subsequent 4 years.
The Division of State Hospitals stated it’s going to proceed working to fulfill the 2024 deadline for 28-day wait occasions statewide. The workplaces of Gov. Gavin Newsom and California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta referred all inquiries to the Division of State Hospitals.
Stiavetti stated her household is “heartbroken and extremely offended” concerning the state’s efforts to wriggle free from the present deadlines, and “gained’t cease combating” till the state proves it’s taking “the care of each psychological well being affected person in jail critically.”
Getting John out
By the point Sandra Siedenburg sat down earlier than a state Senate subcommittee in February to testify about Haasjes, her cousin, it had been greater than 400 days since Haasjes’ arrest, and almost 340 since he was declared incompetent. Nonetheless, he was locked up in a pretrial jail facility in Bakersfield.
John Haasjes at dwelling in Tehachapi. After being declared incompetent to face trial, Haasjes remained in jail for longer than state courts have stated is constitutional.
(Dania Maxwell/Los Angeles Occasions)
Partially due to COVID-19 protocols, Siedenburg stated, Haasjes was locked in his cell for greater than 23 hours a day. Daily throughout his free hour, she stated, he would bathe after which name her to ask the identical query: “When am I going to get out?”
Siedenburg stated Haasjes has misplaced his sponsored housing. His mom, who was “his rock,” died whereas he was in jail. And he suffered abuse by the hands of different inmates, although just a few took him underneath their wing.
Fairly than the sturdy psychological well being care Haasjes was entitled to by regulation, he was solely seen by a “telepsychiatrist as soon as each three months for quarter-hour,” and had “a really occasional cursory social employee go to his cell door,” Siedenburg stated.
Siedenberg advised the lawmakers that her cousin’s therapy wasn’t proper, that Haasjes deserved to return dwelling together with her.
The identical day, Stephanie Clendenin, director of the Division of State Hospitals, emailed Siedenburg immediately, saying she was trying into Haasjes’ case. Quickly after, Haasjes was transferred right into a state hospital. Officers blamed the delay on his paperwork not being filed accurately in Kern County.
He spent three months there earlier than Siedenburg helped work out a take care of prosecutors wherein Haasjes was launched after pleading responsible to misdemeanor prices.
At the moment, Haasjes stated he’s doing significantly better dwelling with Siedenburg. He doesn’t have an ideal reminiscence of his time in jail, however he remembers he was denied medical care even when he crammed out particular slips of paper asking for it.
“I used to be within the jail too lengthy,” he stated in a current interview. “They need to not put folks in jail.”
