Sir, let me explain my
expectations in the courtroom.
That's pretty fire over the last
several months. Your honor.
The suffering here is egregious.
Our cameras were rolling out of anxiety
as a record number of defendants deemed
incompetent to stand trial filed into court.
He has now been incarcerated
four months. People
with mental illnesses so severe they
don't understand the charges against them.
It looks to me like maybe
you're hearing voices today.
Am I right about that?
Yeah. We are asking the
court to dismiss this case.
We saw defense attorneys routinely asking.
Judges to throw out the charges
depends who's asking the court,
respectfully to dismiss the charges
because their clients are sick
and languishing in jail without
mental health treatment for
lengths of time never seen before
in the state of Washington.
Alexander JF Seattle is one
of those defendants. The
amount of time that Mr Jay is
being required to wait is barbaric.
In April, a judge found he was
incompetent to stand trial and ordered
he be sent to Western State Hospital in
Steilacoom to try to get stabilized.
Treatments called competency restoration.
The court ruled Jay needed to be out of
jail and in the hospital within seven days,
but he's been waiting behind
bars for more than seven months.
It's unbelievable. You want it to be done.
Kim Hayes is one of Jay's alleged victims.
A light rail security camera captured this
random attack in March as she was going
to work as a trauma nurse at Harborview.
Her clavicle and ribs were broken and
she thought she could have been killed.
Can you characterize or put into words what
this whole experience has done to you?
Yeah. Ooh, it has. Changed my life.
Kim says the states delays are
unacceptable for everyone.
I want to move on with my life,
but I would move on quicker if we,
you know for him that resolution of
getting him into an appropriate bed,
an appropriate place.
You think you can heal faster?
Yeah, absolutely.
In a 2015 order, federal Judge Marsha
Pechman ruled the state is violating
the constitutional rights of some
of its most vulnerable citizens,
that jails are not hospitals
and the mentally ill are being.
Warehoused while they wait for services,
PECKMAN ordered DHS to provide
inpatient treatment within seven days
of a judge ruling that help is needed.
But that hasn't happened.
Despite the judge's order and millions
of extra dollars spent on resources,
we found the state's wait times
have gotten worse, not better,
state records show. In 2015,
the average wait time for a bed
at Western was less than a month.
In 2022, that weight has shot
up to four months and longer.
Would you ever have imagined that in 2022
we'd be in this place? Absolutely not.
ACLU legal director Laron Baker was
one of the attorneys on the case
that led to the seven day timeline.
I didn't think there was a universe
in which a state agency would just
really renege on their obligations.
It's a real human tragedy.
A year after the federal court ruling,
Judge Peckman railed against the
state for not doing better writing.
DSHS needed to stop the
procrastination and false promises.
She ruled the state in contempt
and leveled fines for not meeting
deadlines from 2016 to 2018.
That cost DSHS $88 million.
After that, a settlement
agreement put the fines on hold,
but they're still accumulating.
Records we've compiled show
if it all has to be paid,
the total bill would now
be more than $300 million.
I put together this database
doctors Brian Weidlinger and
Thomas Kinlan are the state's
top officials overseeing.
Western State hospital.
That's the total.
What do you think of that?
Unbelievable. Would you say
that the state isn't a crisis?
A competency crisis for sure.
This has gotta be difficult.
Ohh, it's crushing.
It's disheartening.
The doctors say this year the state
was hit with a perfect storm,
including the effects of COVID.
After several shutdowns
at hospital admissions,
a backlog of cases are now coming through.
Also, staffing is at historic
lows at Western state.
About 1/4 of the jobs are sitting unfilled.
I'm being subjected to solitary confinement,
and more than anything,
they say there's a whopping increase in need.
In the last year alone,
Western saw demand for
competency treatment skyrocket.
By 40% we
knew ahead of time that
that services would be
increasing overtime.
We knew that what happened recently
we we don't understand that.
I don't think anyone
expected that to happen.
DSHS is working to build new bed space.
This project at Western State will
add dozens of new spots next year,
and they're building in
Thurston and Clark counties,
trying to decrease wait times for
patients and decrease the likelihood
of getting dragged back to court.
To pay the piled up fines,
we have to be fiscally mindful and and
having to pay 300,000,000 would be.
You know, that's the taxpayers dollars,
so of course it's concerning.
I am finding the department
in contempt. Judges
are clearly fed up saying the state's
efforts aren't enough for defendants,
taxpayers and victims alike.
The delay imposed by the government is
unconscionable and it is inconsistent with
the behavior of a civilized society.
It is absolutely outrageous.
They've got to pay the price for not
providing this especially, you know,
human care to people who need it.
This mental health care,
the longer this process goes on,
it does take away your belief in the
system and it affects so many people.
The 10s of millions of dollars in
fines the states already paid have
gone toward improving the system,
so that's positive.
The states created what are called
diversion programs to help people
before a crime is committed,
but those efforts haven't been enough
to keep the wait times from reaching
record levels in The Newsroom.
Susanna Frame, King 5 News.