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Washington’s Continuing Competency Crisis Strains Jails

Loaded on June 1, 2025 published in Prison Legal News June, 2025, page 1
Filed under: Medication, Systemic Medical Neglect, Conditions of Confinement, Failure to Treat (Mental Illness). Location: Washington.

The State of Washington has consistently failed to provide timely competency evaluations and restoration services to defendants facing criminal charges. Despite years of litigation, injunctions, consent decrees, and contempt fines ranging into the hundreds of millions, problems persist unabated. With mentally ill detainees languishing in jails untreated and unable to …

 

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More from this issue:

  1. Washington’s Continuing Competency Crisis Strains Jails
  2. Rejected by Conviction Integrity Unit, 
27 New York Prisoners Exonerated Anyway
  3. From the Editor, by Paul Wright
  4. $2.4 Million Settlement Reached After Elderly Pretrial Detainee Strangled by Cellmate in San Antonio Jail, by David Reutter
  5. Oklahoma Supreme Court Kills One Jail Death Suit, 
Threatening Settlement of Another
  6. Arkansas DOC Settles Retaliation Claim by Prisoner 
Who Also Won Back Confiscated COVID-19 Stimulus
  7. Kansas Supreme Court Revives Prisoner’s Challenge 
to Loss of Parental Rights, by Matthew Clarke
  8. Rural Virginia Jury Refuses to Hold Guards Liable 
for State Prisoner’s Death
  9. French Prisons Targeted 
in Coordinated Attack
  10. Top Rikers Island Jailers Logged Overtime 
Equal to 14-Hour Days With No Days Off
  11. Mississippi DOC Issues Almost $300 Million 
in No-Bid Contracts to VitalCore Health
  12. Fifth Circuit Refuses to Stop Court-Ordered Construction 
of Mental Health Facility at New Orleans Jail, by Boris Bastidas
  13. Ninth Circuit Revives Complaint Over Sloppy Cell Checks 
Before Psychotic Detainee’s Death at L.A. Jail, by Douglas Ankney
  14. $875,000 Award for Illinois Prisoner’s Delay 
in Getting Hernia Surgery, by David M. Reutter
  15. Salvadoran President’s Dark Secret Allegedly Behind Deal 
to Hold Deported Migrants in “Mega” Prison
  16. California Appellate Court: Custody Credits Must be Applied 
to Concurrent Terms in Multiple Open Cases, by David M. Reutter
  17. Over $1.1 Million Recovered for Rikers Island Janitors
  18. Former Centurion Owner Accused of Helping Florida Governor Kill Legalized Weed
  19. Four Arizona Prisoners Dead After Being Celled 
with Leader of 2004 Standoff
  20. $100,000 Settlement Reached For Tennessee Detainee 
Baptized to Get Out of Traffic Ticket, by Boris Bastidas
  21. Sixth Circuit Limits Deliberate Indifference Standard 
in Kentucky Jail Medical Care Challenge, by David M. Reutter
  22. Italy Begins Conjugal Visits 
in Prison “Sex Rooms”
  23. Auburn University’s Prison Education Program ‘Indefinitely Suspended’, by Charlotte West
  24. New Mexico Watchdog Group Sues for Video Allegedly 
Showing Jailers Killing Detainee, by David M. Reutter
  25. Gay Tennessee Prisoner Refuses to Out Himself 
in PREA Classification Hearings
  26. $500,000 for Colorado Detainee Dropped 
On His Face by Jailers, by Douglas Ankney
  27. Three New York Guards Plead Guilty to Beating Black Prisoner 
in “George Floyd Challenge”
  28. Ninth Circuit Reinstates Religious Exercise Claim from Arizona “Christian-Israelite” Prisoner Denied Passover Meal, by Michael Thompson
  29. Watchdogs Fault Nebraska Prisons 
for Suicide Response, Overpaid Staff, by Boris Bastidas
  30. Smart Communications Files for Bankruptcy Protection
  31. 11th Alabama Sheriff’s Employee Pleads Guilty in Jail Detainee’s Death, Admits Stomping Him in Genitals
  32. Second South Carolina Prisoner 
Executed by Firing Squad
  33. Tenth Circuit Upholds Nearly $8.8 Million Judgment 
for Utah Jail Death, by Douglas Ankney
  34. Seven TDCJ Prison Guards Arrested 
in Alleged Smuggling Ring
  35. Fifth Circuit Reinstates Baha’i Texas Prisoner’s Dietary Claim, by Matthew Clarke
  36. $62,500 For Idaho Prisoner Raped by Guard 
Who Later Committed Suicide, by Anthony Accurso
  37. Eighth Circuit Excuses Missouri Prisoner’s Failure 
to Exhaust Remedies While He Was In a Coma, by Douglas Ankney
  38. GTL/ViaPath Ordered to Pay $3 Million for Violations 
of Consumer Protection Laws
  39. Former Wisconsin Warden Gets No Cell Time, $500 Fine After Prisoner Deaths
  40. Federal Court Blocks Idaho Executions Until Media Access Improves
  41. $1.3 Million for Massachusetts Prisoner 
Stabbed by Guard in Connecticut Lockup, by Douglas Ankney
  42. California Enacts Counterproductive, 
Regressive Solitary Confinement Bill
  43. Government Quasi-Agency Attempts to Infiltrate Criminal Justice Nonprofit
  44. $7.75 Million Settlement for Exonerated North Carolina Prisoner, by David M. Reutter
  45. Fourth Circuit Upholds South Carolina DOC Policy 
Restricting Prisoner Access to News Media
  46. $13 Million Awarded to Exonerated Massachusetts Prisoner 
for Wrongful Conviction, by David M. Reutter
  47. New York Lowers Minimum Age 
for Prison Guards
  48. $5.6 Million Settlement for California Prisoner’s Wife 
Strip-searched During Visit, by Matthew Clarke
  49. Almost $4.4 Million for Illinois Prisoner’s Failure to Protect Claim, by David Reutter
  50. Death Row Prisoners Challenge New Tennessee 
Single-Drug Lethal Injection Protocol
  51. Eighth Circuit Lets Missouri Guard Skate For Placing Avowed Enemies In Same Cell, Resulting In Assault, by Anthony Accurso
  52. Georgia Moves to Shield Intellectually Disabled Prisoners 
from Execution
  53. Long-Running Consent Decree Again Extended 
at Troubled Baltimore Jail
  54. $50,000 for Excessive Force Claim by Maryland Prisoner 
Who Used to Be a Guard
  55. Retired California Prison Guard Killed in Colorado Jail
  56. Academic Study of Prison Guards’ Use of Excessive Force 
Details Sad State of Civil Rights for Abused Prisoners, by Matthew Clarke
  57. Kansas Pays $150,000 for Prisoner Killed by Cellmate, 
Centurion Settlement Confidential
  58. $52,500 for Trans Florida Prisoner 
Sexually Assaulted by Cellmate
  59. Wellpath and VitalCore Skip Paying Nearly $2 Million 
in Settlements in South Carolina
  60. U.S. Pulls $1.5 Million in Funding from Maine DOC 
Over a Single Trans Prisoner
  61. Idaho Spent $200,000 on Execution Drugs Now Expired
  62. Washington Appellate Court: 
Personal Restraint Petition Proper Vehicle 
to Challenge Community Supervision, by David Reutter
  63. Former Jail Guard Accused of Having Sex with Detainee 
Now Vice-Chair of Florida GOP
  64. $2.8 Million Settlement in National NUMI 
Debit Release Card Class Action, by David Reutter
  65. New York Guards Plead Guilty to Fatally Beating Prisoner, 
Mopping Up His Blood
  66. $3.15 Million for Illinois Prisoner Raped by Guard 
and Then Denied “Boot Camp”
  67. Trio of Guards Fired and Arrested for Smuggling at Louisiana Jails
  68. Rash of 5,000 False-Positive Prisoner Drug Tests Going 
to California Parole Board Anyway
  69. Two Guards Arrested in Two Weeks 
at Texas Jail
  70. News in Brief
  71. $6 Million Settlement in Illinois Detainee’s Gruesome 
Untreated Heroin Withdrawal Death, by David Reutter

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