On September 8, 2015, Disability Law Center (DLC), a non-profit organization that advocates on behalf of individuals with disabilities, and three individuals who were charged for criminal offenses but declared incompetent to stand trial filed this class-action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah. The plaintiffs sued Utah, the Utah Department of Human service, the Utah Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health and Utah State Hospital (USH) under 42 U.S.C. §1983. The plaintiffs (represented by the DLC’s attorney) claimed that the defendants violated their rights under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and the comparable Utah constitutional provisions. They sought a declaratory judgment and injunctive order.
Specifically, the plaintiffs alleged that criminal defendants who were declared incompetence in Utah were required to wait for an average of 6 months in county jails without appropriate treatment until they could receive competency restoration treatment at USH because UHS, the only treatment provider was over-capacity. While these defendants were waiting for the competency restoration treatment, they were often placed in protective custody or solitary confinement. Each named plaintiff had waited in a county jail for 5 to 6 months until the admission to USH.
The defendants moved to dismiss the complaint on October 30, 2015. On April 7, 2016, District Judge Robert J. Shelby denied the defendants’ motion to dismiss, holding that a pretrial detention amounted to punishment and thus violated the plaintiffs' substantive due process rights when such detention was not reasonably related to the government interest. 180 F.Supp.3d 998, 2016.
On September 17, 2015, the plaintiffs sought class certification of those who were and would be waiting for the competency restoration treatment in a county jail. Judge Shelby granted the Plaintiff’s motion on September 27. The court defined the certified class as:
All individuals who are now, or will be in the future, (a) charged with a crime in Utah, (b) are determined by the court which they are charged to be mentally incompetent to stand trial, and (c) are ordered to the custody of the executive director of DHS or a designee for the purpose of treatment intended to restore the defendant to competency but remain housed in a Utah county jail.
The defendants filed a petition for permission to appeal this order on October 12, 2016. The U.S. Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit denied the petition. (Circuit Judges Mary Beck Briscoe, BRISCOE, Harris L. Hartz, and Nancy L. Mortiz).
On June 12, 2017, the parties moved to have the court appoint a monitor, approve their settlement agreement, and stay the proceedings. The settlement involved comprehensive injunctive relief to class members. The defendants agreed to transmit a monthly Status Report to the designated monitor and the DLC; conduct screening of the mentally incompetent detainee within 72 hours after DHS received the Custody Order of them; gradually reduce the maximum allowable wait time to 14 days by March 31, 2019; establish the offsite forensic facilities to provide treatment to the class members outside of USH; and implement an outreach program to treat class members in detention facilities. The court retained the jurisdiction over the implementation and enforcement of this agreement for 5 years. Each party agreed to bear their own attorney’s fee. On July 12, 2017, Judge Shelby approved the settlement. The monitoring was set to continue until July 12, 2022.
As of February 2019, the settlement agreement is still in place and the case is ongoing, although there has been no further litigation since the settlement was implemented.
Chiaki Nojiri - 02/01/2019
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