Oklahoma leaders reject settlement on jail MH services

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt and other state leaders have rejected a legal settlement of a federal lawsuit over long delays in providing mental health treatment to jail detainees found not competent to stand trial, the Oklahoma Voice policy news service reported Oct. 8. State Attorney General Gentner Drummond had pushed for the negotiated settlement, which included a remediation plan that would revamp the state's current system for restoring offender competency and increase the state's number of forensic beds devoted to competency restoration (see “Legal settlement would expedite MH treatment for Oklahoma detainees,” MHW, July 1, 2024; https://doi.org/10.1002/mhw.34099). But Stitt and the commissioner of the state Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, Allie Friesen, have characterized the settlement as overly costly and burdensome. Shortly before an Oct. 8 meeting of a review board chaired by Stitt, Friesen announced that she was terminating Drummond as the state's counsel in the case. Friesen indicated with regard to the proposed settlement that she would “resign before signing an agreement like this,” Oklahoma Voice reported. The lawsuit was originally filed in March 2023 in U.S. District Court on behalf of three incarcerated inmates. It alleges that detainees' long waits for needed mental health treatment have caused their conditions to deteriorate, and this violates the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution and the Americans with Disabilities Act.