A 27-year-old Salem man with a developmental disability and mental illness has been held in the Marion County Jail for more than two months with no criminal charges against him.
The case — which advocates are calling incredibly troubling — has little precedent and highlights the far-reaching impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on Oregon’s long-struggling behavioral health system.
“Held on the idea of future crimes he might commit”
Between jail and involuntary committal, Jonathan Villegas has been held for over 450 days. Villegas, 27, is not currently serving a sentence or facing any criminal charges, yet there is no immediate end to his incarceration. The Marion County Jail roster lists Villegas as a “civil commitment mental defect,” and indicates he is being held without bail at the time of publishing.
In May 2020, Villegas, an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz, was charged with five crimes after an alleged altercation he had with his older brother at the Marion County house both had lived at. Court documents show the District Attorney sought to incarcerate Villegas for six months as a result of the altercation; however, it was determined his mental illness and developmental disability impaired his ability to understand the charges against him.
The Marion County Jail roster lists Villegas as a “civil commitment mental defect,” and indicates he is being held without bail.
Accordingly, he was sent to the Oregon State Hospital as a part of the state’s aid and assist program, which works to diagnose and treat patients’ mental illness(es) and stabilize them so they can understand the charges against them and aid in their own defense.
However, on May 14, after Villegas had spent almost a year between the State Hospital and Marion County Jail, Leah Glass, a clinical psychologist for the Forensic Evaluation Service at the state hospital, found he would never be able to aid and assist in his defense and, in accordance with state laws governing the aid and assist program, the charges against him were dismissed without prejudice, which means the charges could theoretically be brought against him again if the court finds him fit at a later date. Her report lists his diagnoses of “unspecified schizophrenia spectrum and other psychotic disorder” and “unspecified neurodevelopmental disorder” as the reasons he is not fit to stand trial.
It was at this point his situation departed from the everyday and became what civil rights advocates are calling an incredibly troubling turn of events.
Instead of being released when the charges against him were dismissed, Marion County Circuit Court Judge Channing Bennett drafted a warrant of detention, detaining Villegas in jail indefinitely pending two separate civil committal cases the judge initiated. One case seeking to commit him due to his mental illness and the other due to his developmental disability.
People who are civilly committed routinely await admission to the state hospital in restrictive psychiatric units in hospitals; however, they are virtually never held in jail.
Citing Glass’ May 2021 report and the probable cause affidavit from the initial May 2020 incident — which Villegas was not convicted of and his attorney maintains he is not guilty of — the warrant of detention said the court found there was probable cause to believe if he was not incarcerated, Villegas would “pose an imminent and serious danger to (himself) or to others.”
Addressing Villegas at the beginning of an Aug. 4 committal hearing relating to his mental illness, Bennett doubled down, saying he felt Villegas may assault someone in the future, “based on the history that’s been presented” to him.
Villegas’ court-appointed attorney, Andy Acosta, argued the “stale evidence about Mr. Villegas’ mental condition or about his dangerousness” does not meet the high burden of proof necessary to commit someone due to mental illness.
Acosta said in Oregon, not only does the state have to show the person has a mental illness but that the mental illness is directly linked to a risk of violence or their inability to provide for their own basic needs. Additionally, Acosta said Oregon law requires the judgment be made about the person’s mental state at the time of the hearing — not the past.
At the end of the hearing, Bennett ruled in favor of Acosta’s argument, saying because Villegas has not had any incidents in jail and was found to not be a danger to himself or others by an Oregon Health Authority Civil Commitment Investigator, he didn’t meet the standard for civil committal.
Bennett told Villegas during the hearing “the jail is not an appropriate place for you,” adding “I’ve been trying to find a way that we can get you out to somewhere else, so that you’re not in the jail, but you can get some basic services that you need.”
Street Roots could not independently verify Bennett was making an effort to find treatment for Villegas. Bennett said he “cannot discuss an open case for which I am presiding over it in any form with anybody except on the (court) record.”
At the end of the hearing, however, Villegas was sent back to jail pending the resolution of the other committal case against him and the lifting of Bennett’s warrant of detention. At the time of publishing, Villegas is still in jail and has been held for more than two months without any charges against him.
To civil rights advocates, Villegas’ situation is shocking. Normally when someone is in the civil committal process, they are held and treated in a psychiatric care unit within a hospital. Explaining the point of civil committal is to help people recover, K.C. Lewis, managing attorney for Disability Rights Oregon’s Mental Health Rights Project said “the idea of someone awaiting a commitment in a jail is incredibly troubling.”
“(Villegas) is basically being held on the idea of future crimes he might commit,” said Lewis. “And the apparatus to hold him on that concern exists only because he has a disability and has a mental illness.”
Since hearing about Villegas’ situation from Acosta, Disability Rights Oregon has begun watching the situation closely. Lewis met with Villegas while touring the jail and attending hearings for the case.
Disability Rights Oregon isn’t the only advocacy group closely monitoring the situation. The Oregon Justice Resource Center filed a tort claim notice — an early step in a potential lawsuit.
Juan Chavez, attorney and director of the Oregon Justice Resource Center’s Civil Rights Project, explained the notice cites a key state law preventing people with intellectual disabilities who are not charged with a crime from being incarcerated.
With the exception of a similar case only weeks ago in Marion County where the incarcerated person was quickly released from jail when Acosta asked to represent them, no legal experts Street Roots spoke to about this case said they had heard of a situation like this before. While people in Oregon have been incarcerated for extended periods of time without being charged or convicted of a crime, it’s rare.
This was the case for Moises Vasquez-Hernandez who was locked up for 905 days as a material witness in 2015. The case became international news and led to Oregon House Bill 2316.
Chavez described a potentially similar end result of Villegas’ situation,
“It’s the kind of situation that maybe we have to make new laws ... to prevent this from happening,” Chavez said.
In the meantime, if Villegas is committed, he stands to face new challenges in the Oregon civil committal process.
Civil committals in Oregon
Once someone is civilly committed, they are under the jurisdiction of the Oregon Health Authority who can then refer them to the Oregon State Hospital. If the individual meets admission criteria they are then added to the hospital’s civil committals admissions list.
In Oregon, there are currently 31 people on that list, according to a detailed statement provided to Aria Seligmann, Oregon Health Authority communications officer. The average wait time for the 31 patients on the admission list is nearly 76 days.
The statement noted the longest wait of the 31 people is over 400 days long dating back to July 1, 2020; however, Seligmann added the caveat they have a “very specific situation.” Seligmann declined to provide further information because it would “contain identifying information.”
This year, only three people have been admitted to the state hospital through civil committals. This contrasts starkly with admissions figures prior to the pandemic. In 2019, 256 people were admitted to the state hospital through civil committals, with their average wait time being 24.5 days, or less than a third of what it is this year, according to Seligmann.
Addressing the closely related problem of people found guilty except for insanity waiting long periods of time in jail before being admitted to the state hospital, during a July 16 Multnomah County Circuit Court hearing, Derek Wehr, deputy superintendent of the state hospital, testified the problem was attributed to a rise in aid and assist cases coinciding with the hospital’s COVID-19 admissions protocol reducing their capacity to admit patients.
Street Roots reported in July the hospital gives aid and assist committals top priority, followed by people committed after being found guilty except for insanity, and finally civil committals.
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Speaking to the implications of the situation, Lewis said “so if we’re in a world where they’re not even able to admit all of the (people committed through the aid and assist program), that means every new aid and assist moves all the civil commitments back.”
Both Wehr in his testimony and then-spokesperson for the Oregon Health Authority Rebeka Gipson-King in a July statement to Street Roots said the problem would be fixed in the coming months through a massive new funding package passed by the Oregon legislature in its most recent session.
Advocates call for solutions addressing root causes
While advocates, lawmakers, and the state hospital all agreed the package was a fantastic first step, Lewis said unless the root causes of these issues are addressed, the problem will reemerge.
When asked if this is the case, Seligmann agreed.
“Ultimately, a comprehensive community-based system to help people with severe and persistent mental illness maintain housing and treatment is the most effective long-term strategy to reduce arrest and hospitalization, and thereby reduce demand for OSH beds,” Seligmann told Street Roots.
Similarly, both Chavez and Lewis noted the need to invest in community-based mental health services.
“On the one hand, if we had more resources in the community, we could keep people from getting to the level of acuity and crisis that requires them to be committed in the first place,” Lewis said. “And then on the other hand, if we have those resources in the community, we would have other places that they could go instead of the state hospital, or instead of other hospitals.”
However, both also separately said below everything else, the criminalization of mental illness and disability are the root cause of the aid and assist crisis the state hospital is dealing with and a key driver in many related problems.
“It begins with police showing up to resolve calls, their job is to see crime, so they find one and detain you and put you in jail,” Chavez said. “After that, the prosecutor keeps you in jail, and so police and prosecutors are the drivers of this crisis at a core level.”
Jonathan wants to go home. He wants to work. He wants to not ever have to be forced into a jail cell again.
– Andy Acosta, Public Defender
Likewise, Lewis said the issue won’t be solved simply by funding or increased capacity after the pandemic.
“If we don’t see some changes in criminal policy and changes in the ways that our local law enforcement are approaching this population, there’s no reason to think that we’re going to see any kind of reversal in that trend,” Lewis said.
While Villegas’ situation shares common elements with the situations of many others indefinitely stuck in hospitals and jails as they await admission to the state hospital or for their case to be tried, Lewis said he is experiencing “a greater deprivation of rights, because at least in the majority of cases if not all cases … someone who has been committed is never going to be waiting in a jail.”
Citing the systematic physical and mental violence people with mental illness and/or disabilities experience in jail, as well as the overall focus on punishment rather than rehabilitation in jails, Lewis said Villegas needs to be somewhere else for care.
“Of all the places that you can be if you have a mental illness, I think it is safe to say that jail or prison is probably the worst place that you can be,” Lewis said.
According to Acosta, Villegas is experiencing just that.
“Jonathan is understandably frustrated that he’s been in jail for so long, especially since he believes he was not guilty of the original charges in the first place,” Acosta wrote in an email to Street Roots. “He’s lonely and more isolated than ever before.”
Though Villegas can’t speak to the press because anything he says could be used against him if his case is tried again, Acosta was unequivocal when asked what his client wants
“Jonathan wants to go home,” Acosta said. “He wants to work. He wants to not ever have to be forced into a jail cell again.”