HAYS COUNTY COMMISSIONERS COURT
The Hays County Commissioners Court unanimously approved the submission of three letters of support from three different Hays County elected officials regarding a Jail-Based Competency Restoration Program at the regularly scheduled meeting Tuesday. These letters of support would ensure that the Hill Country Mental Health and Development Disabilities Centers could apply for funding in order to implement the program within the Hays County Jail.
Karen Muñoz, a Hays County attorney, spoke in opposition of the program.
“Competency restoration is not about treatment,” Muñoz said. “Competency restoration is narrowly focused on stabilization, symptom management and required legal education. In effect, this means that competency restoration exists so that the state can punish people for their disabilities or for the behaviors that are a result of their mental illness. It favors judicial proceedings above all else.”
Muñoz added that she believes that Jail-Based Competency Restoration is not humanitarian.
“If liberty is indeed our most fundamental value, as our district attorney’s letter states, we should seek alternatives that do not involve keeping someone in jail in the first place, things like outpatient competency restoration so that a person’s competency can be restored outside of the jail,” she said.
Hays County District Attorney Kelly Higgins said that additional men- tal health resources are needed, but that doesn’t negate the need for this program.
“We need a Diversion Center so that that person probably, maybe didn’t go to jail in the first place. We need outpatient resources, but because we need other things, is not an argument against Jail-Based Competency Restoration,” Higgins said. “What I am looking to do is dignify the liberty interests of these patients, these defendants. I don’t want them held 20 months until the state of Texas gets around to providing the medical care they need. I want us to provide the medical care up front.”
Higgins said the Williamson County program, which was started in January of last year, has a 40-day average and a 100% success rate for competency restoration.
“For me, that outweighs the argument that we’re not doing all the other things we should be doing,” he said. “But I’m telling you, the existing regime is the worst possible arrangement for someone. … With a conviction, with a deferred adjudication, with a dismissal, with a decline — It doesn’t matter. We can’t touch the case until that person is restored. Restoration is just the first step toward any criminal process.”
Anthony Winn, MHDD clinical operations director, wanted to point out that part of the Jail-Based Competency Restoration Program involves discharge planning.
“It’s actively taking steps collaboratively with that individual to establish what are the next steps, so that we can continue on this path of recovery,” he said.
Landon Campbell, Hays County division chief assistant criminal district attorney, said that competency restoration is the key to unlocking all of the mental health services that the court has funded.
“Every dollar that you all have put towards the mental health court, towards our future assisted outpatient treatment court, all of those things open up once we have the competency issue solved. It’s something that is keeping an individual from being able to consent to the services that Miss [Kaimi] Mattila, [Hays County Mental Health Court administrator] is providing,” Campbell said. “We spend an enormous amount of our time dealing with mental health issues and not making a decision based on just clearing a case so that it can be conviction and walk out because we’ve been around long enough to recognize that giving someone a quote, unquote ‘time served conviction’ on a criminal trespass and not dealing with their actual issues just means that they’re back in front of us next week; And we haven’t done anything, and our community deserves better.”
Mattila said the Mental Health Court allows carefully screened individuals to participate in a specialty court in order to receive the mental health services that they need in lieu of the traditional justice system.
“These individuals must be competent to enter into the mental health court, and sometimes this is an impediment to their acceptance into the program,” she said. “A Jail-Based Competency Restoration Program would allow individuals to regain competency and proceed through the judicial system, and in appropriate cases, the individual might be able to enter into the mental health court as an alternative to the traditional court system.”
Hays County Commissioner Pct. 2 Michelle Cohen said she shares some of the concerns as Muñoz and other speakers with similar opinions. She added that her decision to sponsor this item was so that, if the funding were awarded, the program would have oversight from a critical eye to ensure its being used in the best way possible.
