×
You've used up your 3 free articles for this month. Subscribe today.
Wait for Competency Restoration Averages 14 Months in Missouri Jails
Loaded on May 1, 2025
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2025, page 61
By late January 2025, a critical shortage of providers had stranded 418 detainees waiting for competency restoration in Missouri jails an average of 14 months each. The number wait-listed for the services had jumped from 300 a year earlier, when state Department of Mental Health (DMH) Director Valerie Huhn …
Full article and associated cases available to subscribers.
As a digital subscriber to Prison Legal News, you can access full text and downloads for this and other premium content.
Already a subscriber? Login
More from this issue:
- $1.2 Million in Settlements Reached in Suit Over Sacramento Jail Murder, by Douglas Ankney
- Multitudes Caged for Failure to Pay Child Support, Driving Mass Incarceration, by Matthew Clarke
- From the Editor, by Paul Wright
- Florida’s “Pay to Stay” Law: A Second Sentence for Former Prisoners
- Fifth Circuit Denies Qualified Immunity to Louisiana Officials Who Forced Prisoner to Work with Broken Surgical Screws in Ankle, by Anthony Accurso
- Study Finds Just 1% of Prisoner’s Eighth Amendment Claims Succeed
- Incarcerated Students Caught in Crosshairs of Trump War on Education Department
- Disbarred Cincinnati Defense Attorney Who Defrauded Prisoner Clients Gets Three-Year Sentence
- Wisconsin Prisoner Inhaled His Own Teeth in Fatal Beatdown
- South Carolina Conducts First U.S. Execution by Firing Squad in 15 Years
- Eleventh Circuit Revives Volunteer Pastor’s First Amendment Claim at Georgia Jail, by Douglas Ankney
- Trump Guts BOP Guard Union
- Los Angeles County Jails Record Almost One Death Every Nine Days
- Florida Prisoner Returns to Custody After Overturned Conviction Reinstated
- South Carolina Jailer Gets 10 Years for Sexually Assaulting Nine Detainees and Co-Workers
- Maryland Targets Highest-in-Nation Racial Incarceration Gap
- Idaho Warden Bought Execution Drugs on Roadside
- Connecticut Court Denies Access to Video of Prisoner’s Fatal Beat-Down by Guards
- Florida Prisoner Released to Die Settles With Centurion Over Ignored Prostate Cancer
- Wellpath Sanctioned for Discovery Violation in Suit Over Kentucky Prisoner’s Death, by Douglas Ankney
- Cruelty Is Now the Point for BOP
- New York Lifts Hiring Ban on Fired Striking Prison Guards, Announces Early Prisoner Releases
- Former Prisoner Appointed President’s Pardon “Czar”
- Oregon DOC Replaces Top Medical Staffers Amid Turmoil
- Rikers Island Staffers, Contractor and Detainee Sentenced for Smuggling
- Washington DOC On Hot Seat Over “Unexpected Fatalities,” Missed Autopsies
- 20 Charged in Nevada Prison Brawl That Left Three Dead
- Second Circuit Revives Connecticut Prisoner’s Challenge To Conditions In Virginia Lockup Where He Was Transferred, by Douglas Ankney
- Pittsburgh Lockup Accounts for 43% of Pennsylvania Jail TASER Use, Suit Filed
- Rikers Island Detainees Wait in “Black Hole” for Competency Treatment
- Mass Incarceration Weakens All Workers, by Eric Seligman, Brian Nam-Sonenstein
- Plans to Hold Migrants at Gitmo Hit Snag
- Third Circuit Denies Qualified Immunity to Pennsylvania DOC in Prisoner’s Challenge to 26 Years of Solitary Confinement
- Studies Link Incarceration with Lower Cancer Survival Rates—For Prisoner’s Partners, Too, by Anthony Accurso
- Virginia Bribes Prisoners Not to Set Themselves On Fire
- $2.95 Million Settlement for Untreated Pneumonia Death in Washington Jail
- Medical Copays Blamed for Reducing Prisoner Access to Healthcare
- New York Guards Indicted for Prisoner’s Murder
- Missouri Repeals “Pay-to-Stay” Law
- New Jersey DOC Sued Twice for Turning “Blind Eye” to “Pervasive” Drug-Smuggling Blamed for Prisoner Deaths
- $18,000 for New York Prisoner Who Alleged Guards Planted Shank in Cell
- Kansas Supreme Court Denies Compensation to Former Prisoner Whose Conviction Was Overturned
- Los Angeles County Pays $24 Million to Two Former Prisoners Wrongly Convicted as Teens of 1997 Murder, by Matthew Clarke
- Missouri Pays More Than $1.2 Million for Deputy Warden’s Sexual Harassment Claim Against Warden, by Douglas Ankney
- New Orleans Public Defender’s “Redeem Team” Says: “Re-entry Is Never Over”
- Texas Courts, Legislature at Odds over Executing Potentially Innocent Death Row Prisoner
- ACLU Sues BOP Over Failure to Implement First Step Act Release Credits, by Anthony Accurso
- Six Deaths in Eleven Months at Washington Jail
- New York Prisoner Awarded Almost $280,000 in Retaliation Claim Against Guards
- West Virginia Prison Chief Tapped to Helm BOP
- Crackdown On Pro-Palestinian Dissent Nabs New York Professor Who Found Link Between Cars and Incarceration
- Two California Prisoners Accused of Strangling Conjugal Visitors
- Wellpath Prepares Plan to Exit Bankruptcy
- Texas Prison Heat Declared Unconstitutional
- $3.4 Million Settlement for Minnesota Jail Death Called “Real-Life Nightmare”
- BOP Jettisons Transgender Offender Manual
- Kentucky Jail Sued for Detainee’s Death, Prisoner’s Stillborn Child
- Wait for Competency Restoration Averages 14 Months in Missouri Jails
- Jury Deadlocks at Trial of Last BOP Guard Accused at California “Rape Club”
- News in Brief
More from these topics:
- Execution Stayed for South Carolina Prisoner with Immortality Belief, July 1, 2026. Mental Health Experts, Antipsychotic Drugs/Forced Medication, Competency Hearing.
- Colorado Supreme Court Announces Defendant Must Be Competent Before Undergoing Mental-Condition Examination Under § 16-8-107(3)(b), April 1, 2026. Evidentiary Claims, Abuse of Discretion Standard, Expert and Opinion Testimony, Competency Hearing, Denial of Due Process.
- Competency Crisis in Missouri’s Jails, Feb. 1, 2026. Jail Specific, Failure to Treat (Mental Illness), Pretrial Detention and Detainees, Competency, Competency Hearing.
- Texas Lawmakers Restrict Bail and Raise Criminal Penalties, Punt on Prison and Jail Conditions, Aug. 1, 2025. Bail, Failure to Make Findings or Articulate Reasons, Competence of Defendant.
- Rikers Island Detainees Wait in “Black Hole” for Competency Treatment, May 1, 2025. Pretrial Detention and Detainees, Competency Hearing.
- Competency Evaluation Ordered for Condemned Utah Prisoner, Sept. 15, 2024. Death Row, Competency Hearing.
- The Mind-Breakers: the Case of Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, June 1, 2024. War on Terror, Torture Victims Act, Political Prisoners (International), Terrorism, Torture Victims, Competence of Defendant, Convention Against Torture.
- North Carolinian Left in Jail Awaiting Trial for 11 Years, May 1, 2024. Pretrial Detention and Detainees, Competency, Competence of Defendant.
- Escape from Oregon State Hospital Results in Changes to Detainee Transports, March 1, 2024. Escapes, Civil Commitment, Competency, Competence of Defendant.
- California Appellate Court: Time Spent in Mental Hospital to Restore Competency is Time Served, July 15, 2023. U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, Mental Health, Competency Hearing.

