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Judge Michael Mosman of the U.S. District Court in Portland issued a scathing rebuke to Marion County officials who have been trying to send mentally ill dependents to the state psychiatric hospital, which doesn’t have room for them and, thanks to Mosman, doesn’t have to accept them.
Last year, Mosman ordered that mentally ill criminal defendants being treated at Oregon State Hospital could only be held for a maximum of one year in an effort to shorten the hospital’s waitlist for scarce treatment beds.
In an order signed Tuesday, Mosman accused Marion County of “coming up with implausible workarounds” to circumvent that order.
Marion County circuit judges have repeatedly ordered defendants held beyond Mosman’s limits, nearly 40 times according to court filings. County counsel testified in September that there’s no “step-down” facilities in which to place them. And releasing them to the community isn’t a viable or safe alternative, the county says.
“One of the individuals at the state hospital past your order timelines told the judge at his Aug. 31 hearing that when discharged, he plans to kill his father and then wants the police to kill him,” Marion County Counsel Jane Vetto told Mosman, according to a transcript of court proceedings Sept. 6.
Mosman was not swayed. In September, he invoked the supremacy clause of the United States Constitution to render orders by Marion County judges void. (That clause says federal law takes precedence over state law.)
And still, the legal fight continues. This latest case involves a technicality: a dispute over whether a prior charge counts as “new,” resetting the clock on the one-year maximum stay.
The defendant in the case at issue was held at Oregon State Hospital after being charged with crimes in Lane County. In August 2020, the patient, who is unnamed in the federal legal filings, pushed some tables and chairs against a fence, climbed over, and escaped.
In 2021, the escapee was charged with both new crimes in Lane County and for escape in Marion County—and spent 14 months at Oregon State Hospital, again, before being released per Mosman’s order in January.
Marion County then issued an order for his arrest on the old escape charge and tried to send the escapee back to Oregon State Hospital. But Mosman struck down that logic, saying the escape charge didn’t count as “new.”
Mosman scolded Marion County attorneys. “We live in the real world, constrained by factors beyond anyone’s control, and trying to implement a system that maximizes benefits to the most people at a time when they can most benefit from it. These problems do not just go away because we do not like them,” he wrote.
“Marion County is a little like someone showing up to a delivery truck where they are handing out free loaves of bread to people in need. When he first arrives, it looks like everyone will get a loaf to themselves. But then unexpectedly, a lot more people show up, and so now the loaves will need to be divided to feed everyone. But Marion County insists that it get its whole loaf, regardless of what that means to others,” Mosman added.
Marion County Commissioner Colm Willis released a statement to the media in response: “It’s unfortunate that Judge Mosman was so disrespectful of a Marion County Judge’s attempt to keep our community safe. At issue was the status of a patient who had escaped from the state hospital. Here in Marion County, the home of the state hospital, we feel the effects of these situations immediately. For Judge Mosman to dismiss such a serious question in such a flippant manner is disappointing to say the least.”