Public defenders tell committee more than 400 Missourians wait months for competency restoration; advocates push community treatment

Mary Fox, director of the Missouri State Public Defender, and Annie Legomsky, the public defender office's holistic defense services leader, told the Missouri House Committee on Health and Mental Health that people found incompetent to stand trial are waiting far longer than statute anticipates and that those delays are filling county jails and harming vulnerable defendants.

"On average, individuals who've been found incompetent to proceed are waiting 14 months before they're brought to the Department of Mental Health for their treatment," Legomsky told the committee. She said Department of Mental Health reports show about 420 people on the wait list as of last month and that the number has been growing since the COVID period.

The competence restoration process in Missouri begins when a judge orders a psychiatric evaluation after a party or the court identifies concerns about a defendant's ability to understand proceedings and assist in a defense. Fox told the committee that the relevant statutory procedures are set out in the courts' rules and in "section 5 5 2.02," and that a judge signs the order for the evaluation. The statute requires evaluations to be completed within 60 days, but committee testimony said there is no firm statutory deadline for how quickly the Department of Mental Health must bring a person into custody for restoration once a court finds them incompetent.

Why it matters: defendants who cannot participate in their defense cannot proceed to…