This story was produced in partnership with The Frontier.
Shron Parker had been waiting in the Oklahoma County jail for nearly six months for a bed at the state mental hospital.
Charged with indecent exposure and indecent or lewd acts with a child under 16, a judge declared Parker incompetent to stand trial last October, meaning he's too mentally ill to assist his attorney in his defense. His criminal case can't move forward until he gets treatment.
In jail, Parker stopped eating and refused to take his prescribed medication for diabetes, making his need for mental health care more urgent, his public defender told a judge at a recent hearing.
"He's got to go today. He's going to die," District Court Judge Kathryn Savage told attorneys for the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services.
But there were no available hospital beds at the state hospital in Vinita, one of the attorneys for the Department of Mental Health said. An official for the agency testified that anywhere from 125 to 150 people on average are waiting for treatment on any given day, down from more than 200 several months ago. The opening of some of the 80 new treatment beds under construction at the state hospital had just been pushed back a week to sometime in July, the official said.
Savage fined the Department of Mental Health $1,000 in Parker's case. Frustrated with delays, some defense attorneys have resorted to asking judges to fine the Department of Mental Health for violating court orders to treat their clients. The Frontier and KOSU found at least 16 similar hearings scheduled between April and June of this year in Oklahoma County. Parker's case was one of three such hearings scheduled on the morning of May 29 in Savage's courtroom.
Daniel Livingston Green stared blankly into space for the duration of his hearing that day. He's accused of killing four people in 2013. Too mentally ill to be prosecuted, he's ping-ponged between state mental institutions and the Oklahoma County jail for over a decade. Green had been waiting for a new psychological evaluation since February, but his public defender said the Department of Mental Health had repeatedly ignored his emails. His attorney finally received an email with a copy of Green's new evaluation during the hearing, but the judge still fined the Department of Mental Health $100 a day – about $3,000 total – for the delay.
The first deadline is Sunday for the Department of Mental Health to take some steps to fix the state's competency system as part of a landmark legal settlement. The first deadline requires the agency to reevaluate everyone deemed incompetent, create clear criteria for who has priority for a spot at the state hospital, develop a plan to materially increase the number of beds for treatment and develop and implement a new pilot program to treat people in jail, among other provisions.
But as deadlines approach, wait times for severe mental illness treatment continue to be months long, and Department of Mental Health officials have at times been unresponsive to requests for updates, defense attorneys representing clients across the state said. The agency has also been dealing with a financial crisis that led to the firing of its leader.
Paul DeMuro, an attorney for people awaiting competency treatment in the class action lawsuit that resulted in the settlement, said he doubts the agency will be able to meet some of the upcoming deadlines.
"From our standpoint, the competency restoration system in Oklahoma is worse now than before and it's in total free fall," DeMuro said.
The Oklahoma Department of Mental Health did not respond to questions about competency treatment and the upcoming settlement deadlines. The agency is still dealing with the aftermath of its recent change in leadership, said Maria Chaverri, the agency's spokesperson.
"ODMHSAS is focused on a leadership transition following the appointment of an Interim Commissioner. While this change is underway, our top priority remains the protection of core services and the continuity of care for those we serve," Chaverri said in an emailed statement.
"We recognize the importance of the issues raised, including ongoing efforts related to the consent decree, forensic services, and budgetary planning. As we transition with interim leadership, we are continuing to evaluate operational needs and ensure that all statutory and legal obligations are met to the fullest extent possible."
A system in disarray
A 2023 lawsuit accused the Department of Mental Health of violating the civil rights of people with severe mental illness waiting in jails for treatment after being found incompetent to stand trial. One plaintiff spent nearly a year in jail before getting treatment, the lawsuit claimed.
According to the terms of an agreement to settle the case, the Department of Mental Health must make progress on a set of reforms to improve the treatment of people with severe mental illness who are charged with crimes by June 8. The agency could face fines starting in September if it fails to improve wait times for treatment.
Ryan Sullivan, a public defender in Oklahoma County, said a defendant's position in line for a bed at the state hospital often feels arbitrary, and there's no clear communication from the department about the status of his defendants.
"Currently, there is no check on who they decide to admit and who they are deciding to not admit," Sullivan said.
Many people with severe mental illness stuck in county jails waiting for treatment are charged with low-level crimes like public intoxication or obstructing a police officer, said Debbie Maddox, executive director for the Oklahoma Indigent Defense System, which provides legal representation to those who can't afford to pay for attorneys. The wait times in county jails to be treated by the Department of Mental Health now often exceed the maximum sentences they face for some of these minor crimes, she said.
"What they suffer sitting in a county jail – literally languishing in an environment that will only make their condition worse – is absolutely unacceptable," Maddox said.
A state agency in crisis
The Department of Mental Health has been the subject of increased scrutiny this year after announcing it was facing a multi-million-dollar budget shortfall that meant the agency may not be able to pay workers. The Legislature was forced to make a last-minute appropriation of $30 million for the agency to finish out its fiscal year.
In a late-night vote on the last day of the Legislative session, lawmakers fired agency head Allie Friesen, saying they had lost confidence in her ability to lead. Gov. Kevin Stitt replaced Friesen less than a week later with retired Rear Admiral Gregory Slavonic, who oversaw a different state agency through financial tumult.
"He's not a mental health expert, he's more of a business person," Stitt said at a press briefing on Wednesday. "He's somebody that I think can do the job."
Efforts to reform
The Legislature appropriated $9.4 million for the next fiscal year to begin implementing the reforms required by the settlement, a little more than half of the $17.8 million the Department of Mental Health originally requested.
The settlement is estimated to cost Oklahoma between $26 million to $45 million over several years, but the price will depend on how long it takes the state to fully implement reforms.
Danna Fowble, executive director of the Oklahoma Psychological Association, said her organization offered to help reevaluate everyone waiting for treatment ahead of the June 8 deadline, but the agency was barred from entering any new contracts until the new fiscal year because of the budget crisis.
"We have a list of about a dozen psychologists that stand ready to help," Fowble said.
She said the department has already trained the psychologists to conduct evaluations, but a contract hasn't been set up yet. The department did not respond to questions about the status of reevaluations or any of the other settlement requirements required by June 8.
The agency has contracted with some mental health professionals who are conducting new evaluations at county jails, an agency official said in court testimony on May 29.
Public defenders throughout the state say some of their defendants have been reevaluated, but they have concerns about the accuracy and consistency of the process.
Lora Howard, the chief public defender in Tulsa County, said she worries reevaluations are being used as a way to cut the department's list of people waiting for treatment. She said recent reevaluations found multiple clients have regained competency in jail without access to medication or treatment.
"There is a zero percent chance that these reports are reflecting an actual change in their mental status," Howard said.
The agency official who testified in Oklahoma County said some defendants can regain competency after being confined to jail without access to illicit drugs, as well as eating and taking prescribed medications regularly.
The settlement also requires the Department of Mental Health to develop and implement a new pilot program to provide mental health treatment for some people in jail. The Tulsa County Sheriff's Office has offered space in the jail, but it's unclear what other progress has been made in getting the program up and running. The sheriff's office said it couldn't give more information this week and state officials didn't respond to questions.
The department was also tasked with creating protocols for who gets priority for treatment at the state hospital. Currently, agency officials say a person's place in line is determined by how long they have been waiting in jail – but someone can skip ahead if they are a danger to themselves or others.
But defense attorneys said the process is still unclear.
Burden falls to counties
The backlog of criminal cases with severely mentally ill defendants clogs up the legal system and creates a burden for county jails, attorneys said. The Oklahoma County Detention Center revoked an agreement with the Department of Mental Health in November, saying the agency refused to pay the jail for the cost of caring for people stuck there waiting for treatment at the state hospital. Tulsa County recently created a special court docket to handle about 100 criminal cases in which the defendants have competency issues, District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler said.
In January, Kunzwieler asked a Tulsa County judge for a court order to immediately transport one defendant to the state hospital in Vinita after he had been waiting in jail for a bed to open up for about four months. Kunzweiler requested the order after getting a call from the man's worried grandfather.
"'I'm gonna get your kid out within a day or two,'" Kunzweiler said he told the grandfather. "And that's what we did."
A sheriff's deputy brought the man from the Tulsa County jail to the hospital in Vinita and showed staff there the court order.
"It might have taken 10 or 15 minutes, but a bed magically appeared," Kunzweiler said.
Copyright 2025 KOSU
