Nevada to pay $753K for delays in providing mental health care to criminal defendants
The State of Nevada will pay more than $753,000 in court-ordered fines for delays in providing criminal defendants with mental health care at a psychiatric facility in Sparks.
The Nevada Board of Examiners — composed of the governor, attorney general and secretary of state — signed off on the payment Tuesday after a Washoe County district court judge in April held the state in contempt for failing to provide timely treatment to criminal defendants deemed mentally unfit to stand trial.
The penalty relates to delays in treatment for nine defendants who were considered mentally incompetent and set for health treatment at the Lakes Crossing Center in Sparks. The state, under the judge’s order, has to pay $500 for every day that a defendant did not receive timely treatment.
These sanctions amounted to $216,000 as of mid-April (when the request to approve the funding was submitted) but the total cost for the ongoing fiscal year was expected to be $753,500, according to a memo from the Division of Public and Behavioral Health (DPBH), the agency responsible for providing the mental health care. The money will go to the Washoe County general fund.
An agency spokesperson did not provide comment on Tuesday.
It’s the latest development in the yearslong issue of timely mental health care aimed at restoring the competence of criminal defendants so that they can stand trial. Wait times are decreasing — the average time for treatment after a court order has decreased from 122 days in 2022 to 74 days as of February, according to information presented to lawmakers earlier this year — but state officials have acknowledged that the issue is far from over.
In its April memo requesting approval of the latest sanction payout, the agency said it expected to pay $3.6 million in fines throughout the next two-year budget cycle. It paid about $181,000 from September 2022 to October 2024, according to information presented at a legislative hearing this year.
The agency touted its efforts across the past two years to provide timely mental health care to defendants, but acknowledged that “the wait time remains significantly higher than” the agency’s stated goal to provide care within 20 days.
Its initiatives include increasing the capacity for treatment for Southern Nevada defendants and constructing a new Southern Nevada facility for defendants with mental illness set to open in 2029.
Other projects include American Rescue Plan-funded programs that are set to expire in the upcoming budget cycle, including ones to provide support to defendants awaiting mental health treatment and place long-term patients into skilled nursing facilities. However, the agency’s upcoming two-year budget included funding to continue the latter program.
The agency’s budget also allocates $17.6 million for 21 additional beds for Southern Nevada patients and 53 new positions related to care for criminal defendants.
The payout comes about 18 months after the Nevada Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s decision that the agency must continue paying the $500 daily fines. The decision followed a Clark County judge’s contempt ruling against the agency for delays in care, but the state argued that the sanctions would be “impossible” to meet.
The agency has also faced multiple lawsuits about timely mental health treatment dating back to 2005. One suit prompted a consent decree — a legally binding agreement — that mandated the department move incompetent defendants to treatment facilities within one week of receiving a competency order. That agreement expired in 2020.
Nevada has continued to lag behind almost every other state in mental health care and ranks worst in the nation for its youth mental health services.
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This story was originally published by The Nevada Independent and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.