## Facts

- Oregon law provides that when a criminal defendant is found unable to aid and assist in the defense (incompetent to proceed), a court orders commitment to the state psychiatric hospital for evaluation and restorative treatment.
- The state hospital frequently did not accept such defendants promptly due to bed unavailability, leaving them in county jails for weeks or months after the incompetency finding.
- The named individual plaintiff was held in jail for an extended period while awaiting transfer after being found incompetent.
- Plaintiffs alleged jail confinement of incompetent defendants lacked adequate psychiatric care, often worsened mental illness, and was not reasonably related to the post-adjudication purpose of confinement (restoration to competency).
- Organizational plaintiffs included a federally funded protection-and-advocacy entity for persons with mental illness and a public defender organization, seeking classwide injunctive relief.
- After a bench trial, the district court found ongoing due process violations and enjoined the state hospital to admit incompetent defendants within seven days of the incompetency determination.
- State officials appealed, disputing standing, the existence of a constitutional violation, and the scope of the injunction.

## Issues

1. Whether the protection-and-advocacy organization and public defender organization had standing to seek injunctive relief on behalf of incompetent criminal defendants.
2. Whether prolonged post-incompetency detention in county jail while awaiting transfer to a state psychiatric hospital violates substantive due process under the Fourteenth Amendment.
3. Whether an injunction requiring admission to the state hospital within seven days of an incompetency finding was a permissible remedy for the constitutional violation.

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s judgment.
- The court held the organizational plaintiffs had standing to sue on behalf of incompetent defendants, treating the protection-and-advocacy entity as functionally equivalent to a membership organization for associational standing purposes.
- The court held that extended jail detention of defendants adjudicated incompetent, without timely transfer for restorative treatment, violated substantive due process.
- The court upheld the injunction requiring admission to the state hospital within seven days, concluding it was supported by the trial record and within the district court’s equitable authority to remedy an ongoing constitutional violation.

## Legal Principles

- After a court adjudicates a defendant incompetent to proceed, continued confinement must be reasonably related to the nonpunitive purpose of restorative evaluation and treatment; unnecessary and unreasonable delays in providing such treatment violate substantive due process.
- Holding incompetent defendants in jail for extended periods awaiting hospital placement, where conditions are not therapeutic and may aggravate mental illness, is not constitutionally justified when the confinement’s purpose is treatment and restoration.
- State administrative burdens or resource constraints, including bed shortages, do not excuse ongoing violations of constitutional rights.
- Federally authorized protection-and-advocacy organizations may bring systemic actions for injunctive relief on behalf of persons with mental illness when the interests are germane to the organization’s mission and individualized participation is not required.
- Federal courts may impose specific temporal requirements by injunction when needed to end a continuing constitutional violation, while leaving the state discretion in operational compliance.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit held that Oregon’s practice of keeping adjudicated-incompetent criminal defendants in county jails for extended periods while awaiting transfer to the state psychiatric hospital violated substantive due process and affirmed an injunction requiring hospital admission within seven days of the incompetency determination.


Or. Advoc. Ctr. v. Mink, 322 F.3d 1101 (9th Cir. 2003)