Disappointing, but not unexpected: The State of Texas says it cannot comply with Judge Orlinda Naranjo's court order requiring state hospitals to accept pretrial defendants declared incompetent by the courts within 21 days, and also asked the judge herself to reconsider her decision, reports Andrea Ball at the Austin Statesman ("
State fights order to move prisoners requiring psychiatric care into hospitals," March 29):
State officials say they can't obey a court order forcing them to move more than 150 mentally incompetent prisoners to psychiatric hospitals by June 1 because they don't have enough space, staff or money to do so.
The Texas attorney general's office has asked Austin-based state District Judge Orlinda Naranjo to review her January decision forcing the Department of State Health Services to start moving all current "forensic commitments" to state psychiatric hospitals by June 1. All such prisoners who arrive after that date would have to be moved to a psychiatric hospital within 21 days of a judge's order. Forensic patients are people accused of crimes who have been deemed incompetent to stand trial because of mental illness.
Complying with the court order would cost between $39 million and $55.2 million, according to a motion for a new trial filed by the attorney general's office this month.
"The short timelines set forth in the court's order makes it physically, fiscally and logistically impossible for DSHS to comply and indicates a lack of appreciation for the magnitude of the task and the complications inherent in implementing the terms of the order," the state wrote in its motion.
The attorney general has also appealed the ruling with the state's 3rd Court of Appeals.
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