On September 8, 2015, the Disability Law Center, a non-profit organization that advocates on behalf of individuals with disabilities, and three individuals who were charged with 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 Services, the Utah Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health, and the Utah State Hospital, under 42 U.S.C. §1983. Represented by Disability Law Center attorneys and private counsel, the plaintiffs sought declaratory and injunctive relief, claiming that the state violated their rights under Article I Section 7 of the United States Constitution, the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, and parallel provisions in the Utah Constitution.

Specifically, they alleged that criminal defendants who were declared incompetent in Utah were forced to wait for an average of 6 months in county jails, without appropriate treatment, before they could receive competency restoration treatment (each named plaintiff had waited in a county jail for 5 to 6 months). This was because the Utah State Hospital, the only facility in Utah authorized to provide competency services, was past its capacity. Criminal defendants in jail while awaiting treatment were often placed in protective custody or solitary confinement.

The state moved to dismiss the complaint on October 30, 2015. On April 7, 2016, District Judge Robert J. Shelby denied the state’s motion to dismiss, holding that a pretrial detention amounted to punishment and thus violated the plaintiffs’ substantive due process rights when their detention was not reasonably related to a government interest. 180 F. Supp. 3d 998.

On September 17, 2015, the plaintiffs sought to certify a class. A year later, on September 27, 2016, the court granted certification, defining the class as: “All individuals who are now, or will be in the future,

1. charged with a crime in Utah,
2. are determined by the court in which they are charged to be mentally incompetent to stand trial, and
3. 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 state sought permission to appeal the class certification; the Tenth Circuit denied the request in November 2016.

Having reached a settlement agreement, the parties moved on June 12, 2017 for the court to approve their agreement. It was approved on July 12, 2017, with Dr. Patrick Fox appointed as monitor. The state agreed to transmit a monthly status report to the monitor and to the Disability Law Center; to conduct a screening of every mentally incompetent criminal defendant within 72 hours after the Department of Human Services received a custody order; to gradually reduce the maximum allowable wait time to 14 days by March 31, 2019; to establish offsite forensic facilities for treatment outside of the Utah State Hospital; and to implement an outreach program to treat class members housed in detention facilities. The court retained jurisdiction over the implementation and enforcement of this agreement for 5 years, with monitoring to continue until July 12, 2022. Each party agreed to bear their own litigation costs.

As of July 2020, monitoring continues.

Chiaki Nojiri - 02/01/2019
Gregory Marsh - 07/05/2020


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