Justice & Accountability
Florida Politics reports that Disability Rights Florida has filed a federal lawsuit accusing the Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF) of routinely blowing past a 15-day deadline to move defendants ruled incompetent to stand trial out of county jails and into state mental health treatment.
- The suit, filed Wednesday in Miami, says the agency misses that mark by more than 100 days on average, with a statewide waitlist of 650 to 880 people.
Why this matters: This suit comes less than three weeks after State Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, blasted DCF for failing to protect children after the release of a Marion County grand jury report. He plans to sponsor legislation to hold DCF more accountable.
- Violation of Due Process: DCF leaves defendants in jail cells without treatment for months. The plaintiffs argue that the state is punishing people who are still presumed innocent.
“Florida has known about this crisis for nearly 50 years, and yet every time the waitlist grows, the state’s answer remains the same: further delays.”—Southern Poverty Law Center Senior Staff Attorney Kelly Knapp
What Investigators Found
Disability Rights Florida interviewed 129 incompetent defendants across 25 counties. For the 108 whose wait could be calculated, the average was at least 124 days. One person waited 246 days. The shortest wait in the sample — 51 days — was still more than triple what the law permits.
- Three people identified in the suit died in county jails after DCF’s deadline had already passed
- Two Duval County cases: a man who died of dehydration weeks past the cutoff, and a woman who died days after a cellmate beat her severely, roughly a month after a judge ordered her hospitalized
- In Sarasota County, a psychotic detainee was allegedly kept in a restraint chair for up to 35 hours at a stretch, with only two bathroom breaks and one meal
- At least 150 people are currently waiting in jails across South Florida’s nine-county federal district, roughly a third of them in Miami-Dade
DCF hasn’t really disputed the missed deadlines. Last year, the agency’s general counsel told a Leon County judge the state wasn’t in “willful non-compliance.” It simply doesn’t have beds. Forensic commitments have surged 74% since 2020, while the state’s bed count has stayed roughly flat.
- Florida has been down this road before. In 2006, a Pinellas County judge fined then-DCF Secretary Lucy Hadi $80,000 over the same kind of delays. She resigned the next day.
Read the full report from Florida Politics: Cruel and unconstitutional: DCF sued, accused of jailing defendants unfit for trial for months