The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Disability Rights Florida (DRF), Florida Justice Institute (FJI) and Terris, Pravlik & Millian, LLP (TPM) filed a federal lawsuit against the Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF) challenging the state’s yearslong pattern of failing to promptly transfer people found unable to stand trial due to mental illness to state psychiatric hospitals and leaving them to deteriorate for months in jails that are neither designed nor equipped to treat them.
Under Florida law, once a court finds that a person charged with a crime is unable to understand the proceedings against them and assist in their own defense, all criminal proceedings are paused and DCF is required to transfer that person from jail to a state hospital for treatment within 15 days. On average, DCF routinely misses that deadline by over 100 days, with a waitlist of between 650 and 880 people statewide. Many people wait four months or longer for care they are legally entitled to.
“Denying people with serious mental illness access to court-ordered mental healthcare is both cruel and unconstitutional,” said Kelly Knapp, senior staff attorney, SPLC. “Florida has known about this crisis for nearly 50 years, and yet every time the waitlist grows, the state’s answer remains the same: further delays. These individuals with mental health disabilities have not been convicted and are presumed innocent. Yet, the state is punishing them by leaving them to deteriorate in jail cells instead of providing desperately needed treatment.”
The lawsuit highlights how many people awaiting transfer to state hospitals suffer from excruciating psychiatric symptoms in jail conditions because jail staff do not have the resources to provide the therapeutic settings and hospital-level care required. In two separate situations described in the complaint, people died in jail while waiting weeks beyond the deadline required by state law for DCF to admit them to court-ordered hospital care.
“Individuals with mental health disabilities, including those who have been arrested and deemed incompetent to proceed, deserve to be treated with dignity and respect,” said Caitlyn Clibbon, litigation director, DRF. “Instead, DCF allows these individuals to suffer for months in jails which are neither equipped nor funded to provide the type of treatment they need and that the court has ordered. This cannot continue.”
Jail conditions are especially harmful to people with serious mental illness because jails are not designed to provide clinical interventions in response to symptomatic problem behaviors. People experiencing untreated mental health symptoms commonly react to jail stressors with behaviors that are dangerous to themselves or others. With limited jail housing options to keep those awaiting transfer safe, the jails may isolate these people in solitary confinement, often for months, worsening their mental health symptoms. Correctional officers are trained to respond to violent behaviors with force, such as tasers, pepper spray or strapping people into restraint chairs, which also worsens mental health symptoms. Florida has tasked DCF with providing care and treatment to people with mental illnesses ordered to the State Hospital. It is unreasonable to expect jails to assume this duty.
“The state cannot leave people in legal limbo while their mental health deteriorates,” said Dante P. Trevisani, litigation director, FJI. “It must address this crisis that has persisted for decades.”
The complaint can be viewed here. The case is Disability Rights Florida v. Williams, 26-CV-26377, in the Southern District of Florida.
