By Teri Maddox
Belleville News-Democrat
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Sheriffs in six Illinois counties, including Madison, are filing a lawsuit against Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Illinois Department of Human Services Secretary Grace Hou over the state’s handling of detainees with mental illnesses.
Sangamon County Sheriff Jack Campbell filed the original complaint in June in the Seventh Judicial Circuit Court in Springfield. Five other sheriffs joined in July as part of an amended complaint. The bipartisan group includes three Democrats and three Republicans.
The complaint argues that IDHS is violating the Illinois Code of Criminal Procedure by not taking custody of defendants within 20 days of their being found unfit to stand trial and remanded to the agency for mental-health treatment; and that executive orders by Pritzker to temporarily suspend the requirement due to COVID are unlawful.
“It’s a statewide problem, and it’s been going on for a couple of decades,” said Jim Kaitschuck, executive director of the Illinois Sheriffs’ Association, which represents sheriffs in 102 counties.
Kaitschuck said Illinois and other states have eliminated most of their long-term inpatient mental-health institutions in favor of community-based outpatient care, causing a bed shortage that has forced jails to house would-be patients waiting for treatment.
According to the complaint in the Sangamon County lawsuit, months-long delays on some transfers from jails to state mental-health facilities with forensic evaluation and treatment programs have caused due-process issues for defendants and required sheriffs departments to:
- Incur staff overtime costs.
- Implement special housing accommodations.
- Provide more frequent supervision.
- Transport “unfit” detainees to periodic hospital visits arising from incidents of self-harm or other related injuries.
- Undertake additional responsibilities associated with care and management of detainees suffering from severe mental illness without access to restorative treatment that IDHS is required by law to provide.
"(The agency’s) continued failure and refusal to timely accept accused individuals found unfit has and continues to adversely affect Plaintiffs’ responsibilities as Sheriffs due to the resulting endangerment of the safety of inmates and jail personnel,” the complaint states.
The sheriffs are asking for a permanent injunction to force IDHS to follow the criminal code. A judge issued a temporary restraining order earlier this month.
The sheriffs are represented by Dylan Grady, a private attorney with Brown, Hay & Stephens in Springfield who’s acting as a special assistant state’s attorney. He declined to comment this week on pending litigation.
Governor doubles down
Pritzker issued 75 executive orders in 2020, most related to safety concerns caused by the COVID pandemic.
One order issued in April 2020 temporarily suspended parts of the criminal code, including one that outlines the process for transfer of defendants from jails to state mental-health facilities after they’ve been found unfit to stand trial and remanded to IDHS custody.
That order stopped nearly all forensic admissions to mental-health facilities initially.
"(IDHS) currently has limited housing capacity to further house additional persons, as well as isolate and quarantine its mental health population, who may present as symptomatic of, or test positive for, COVID-19,” it stated.
Pritzker re-issued the order with revisions on July 6, 2022, after Sheriff Campbell filed his lawsuit in Sangamon County. The governor cited his authority based on a statewide COVID disaster proclamation, which he has renewed more than 30 times since March 2020.
The revised order suspends part of the criminal code related to detainee transfers, including the 20-day requirement, but it doesn’t stop all forensic admissions to state mental-health facilities.
“Admissions are to continue and to be prioritized by the Illinois Department of Human Services,” the order states, listing as criteria a patient’s dangerousness to himself or others, acute mental-health needs, likelihood of decompensation while in jail and length of wait.
Spokesmen for Pritzker’s office didn’t respond to requests for comment on the lawsuit this week.
A motion to dismiss filed by Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s office states that the process outlined in the criminal code for transferring defendants from jails to mental-health facilities isn’t a “strict mandate,” and it provides more flexibility than the sheriffs acknowledge.
Even if the law contained a strict mandate, the motion argues, the governor has authority under the Illinois Emergency Management Agency Act to suspend it during a disaster.
“Plaintiffs have not alleged any facts showing that individuals found to be unfit would be better served by taking them out of a bed in a county jail and admitting them into (an IDHS) facility with no available beds and no available staff to provide treatment,” the motion states.
A Sangamon County judge denied the motion to dismiss and granted a temporary restraining order on Aug. 4.
Problem is nothing new
The county sheriffs involved in the lawsuit are Democrats John Lakin of Madison County, David Clague of Knox County and Gerald Bustos of Rock Island County; and Republicans Jack Campbell of Sangamon County, Jim Root of Macon County and Jon Sandage of McLean County.
Campbell filed his original complaint on June 22.
There are a variety of reasons why sheriffs in the other 96 counties haven’t joined the lawsuit, including plans by many not to seek reelection and the high cost of litigation, according to Kaitschuck.
“I would not assume that because there are only six plaintiffs that this not a more global problem because it certainly is,” he said. “It’s an issue that has affected every county in the state.”
The amended complaint, filed on July 21, listed 46 defendants who had been found unfit to stand trial and were being housed in jails operated by the six sheriffs involved in the lawsuit.
Lakin declined to comment this week on pending litigation but verified that the Madison County Jail in Edwardsville is now housing 19 defendants who have been found unfit to stand trial. One was remanded to IDHS custody on Feb. 8, more than six months ago.
Perhaps the most well-known Madison County detainee is Zachary Capers, 27, a homeless man charged with first-degree murder in the 2019 stabbing deaths of a prominent Edwardsville couple, Lois and Michael Ladd. A judge found him unfit to stand trial after a psychologist’s evaluation and remanded him to IDHS custody on June 6.
At the time, Madison County Chief Judge Bill Mudge said the court’s hope in such cases is that treatment can restore fitness to defendants with mental illnesses, allowing them to eventually stand trial for their alleged crimes.
COVID exacerbated the problem of county jails housing too many people with mental illnesses for too long, but it’s been building for 20 years, according to Kaitschuck.
“Jails have become kind of defacto mental-health institutions for folks who would be better served in treatment facilities, and we’re not equipped to handle that,” he said. “A jail is just not designed for that, nor do we have the expertise or staff to handle folks who have those kinds of mental-health needs.”