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When a federal judge ordered Oregon State Hospital last year to begin releasing some patients early to address a rapidly growing waitlist, the fix was never supposed to be permanent.
It was originally intended to expire in September. Then its expiration was pushed to the end of this year. Now, the judge is being asked to push the expiration date back once again.
Judge Michael Mosman likely will. A motion to “extend remedial order” for an additional year was filed on Wednesday by attorneys for Disability Rights Oregon and Metropolitan Public Defenders, who had previously filed suit on behalf of people stuck in jail waiting for beds at the hospital. The extension is unopposed by the Oregon Health Authority.
The reason is simple. The fix has been effective at doing what it set out to do, mainly reduce the amount of time people too mentally ill to defend themselves in court have to spend in jail while they await an open bed at the state hospital that can restore them to competency. The goal is to keep that time under seven days, and the hospital has successfully done so for the past five months.
And a “neutral expert” in the case, Dr. Debra Pinals, says lifting the early-release order would reverse this progress. “In my opinion the order in its most recent form is and has been necessary for the state to maintain or come close to compliance,” she wrote in her a report on the efficacy of the order filed Dec. 18.
“I’m feeling really good about where we are,” says Emily Cooper, legal director at DRO. “We’ve been in compliance since July. In that time period, everyone has gotten into hospital in 7 days or less. No one has died waiting in jail for the state hospital. Those are huge victories.”
But there has been a cost. As Pinals noted in her report, “there have been downstream consequences.” The hospital is successfully “restoring to competency” fewer people, which causes more people to enter community restoration programs.
In other words, people charged with crimes are being returned to the county too mentally ill to stand trial. And in some cases, they’re sent straight back to the street. “This has put increasing strain on community systems, and raised concerns for judges, prosecutors and counties,” Pinals notes.
A spokeswoman for Oregon State Hospital declined to comment.