KXAN: Central Texas shooting spree case delay highlights state hospital struggles

The suspect, 35-year-old Shane James, was found incompetent to stand trial in November. That means his case is paused until he is sent to a state hospital and his mental competency is restored so he can participate in his own defense.

James now sits in line behind hundreds of other individuals in county jails that are often poorly equipped to handle people experiencing mental illness.

The extended waitlist and its impact on the justice system have proven to be intractable problems for state officials who have tried to address it from multiple angles. They’ve created alternative restoration paths within jails and through outpatient settings; they’ve provided incentives to improve state hospital staffing; they’ve dedicated billions of dollars to renovate hospitals and add new capacity. Yet, the state hospital waitlist remains lengthy.

Auditors quantified a frustrating reality for mental health officials: the same people keep cycling through the system.

In their study, auditors looked at a group of over 15,600 people on the waitlist from September 2018 to January 2024. They found 10% were reoffenders. That means over 1,500 individuals were put on the waitlist multiple times for new charges.

State law does not allow an incompetent person to be kept waiting in jail for a state hospital bed longer than the maximum sentence for the crime they have been charged.

“Individuals who ‘timed out,’ including those who are indigent, are required to be released even if their competency has not been restored,” the audit stated.

Krish Gundu, co-founder and executive director of the nonprofit Texas Jail Project, said people who timed out are “exactly the kind of population that should be aggressively engaged if we are serious about public safety.” She questioned whether local mental health authorities in the state, which received funding to work with those populations, are doing enough. Texas Jail Project is a nonprofit that advocates for people in jail and their family members.

Hansch said there needs to be more robust community-based mental health treatment and better utilization of civil commitment. Outpatient programs are underutilized, Hansch said.

“One of the main reasons why it is underutilized is because – for a lot of people who could benefit from outpatient restoration – there’s nowhere for them to go,” Hansch said. “In order for them to be effective, we rely on people to have a stable living environment, and a lot of people simply don’t.”

The audit was mostly focused on back-end problems affecting and caused by the waitlist, rather than front-end issues that could alleviate the problem before it exists.

Auditors missed the opportunity to study continuity of care queries, which are mandated for people booked in jail and tell if a person has received mental health or intellectual or developmental disabilities services in the past three years, she said.

Auditors also did not quantify the number of people with intellectual and developmental disorders who are put on the waitlist. Gundu said those people will likely never be restored to competency and need alternative services, for example, in a state-supported living center.

“Another glaring and puzzling omission is the complete silence about the I/DD population on the waitlist and Mexia and San Angelo (state-supported living centers) where they are sent for competency restoration,” Gundu said.

The audit hints at the system’s shift from one of civil commitment for those without criminal charges to forensic commitment, which is for people charged with crimes. But, Gundu said, the audit didn’t dig into the lack of civil commitments, which can be expanded and “would make a significant difference in the forensic waitlist.”

Full Article at KXAN