No way out: Why a mentally disabled man was jailed nine years awaiting a murder trial that never happened

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Lorenzo Mays, who is intellectually disabled, spent years lost in a criminal justice system in California that too often fails people with developmental disabilities and mental illness.

But challenges persisted. In January 2010, he arrived in Sacramento for what was supposed to be a brief visit. Back home in Tennessee,

The unit Mays was held in was a non-punishment unit designed to separate out inmates who were often “assaultive and hard to manage,” according to an emailed statement from Sacramento County’s sheriff’s spokesman Amar Gandhi. Gandhi noted that the classification of these individuals “was sometimes made using old and stale information” and that the county is working to reduce the numbers of individuals held there.

In all her years visiting the jail, she said, she had never seen anyone become “so invisible throughout the entire system for so many years.”Nearly a third of people in California jails have a mental illness, a figure that has leapt over the past decade, according to Despite that, Emi McLean, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU, said the situation is worse than in 2019.

Hiren Patel, chief counsel of the Department of Developmental Services, said Carr’s case is “another unicorn” and “even more complicated than Mr. Mays’ case.” Some point to his defense attorneys. Others call out Alta Regional Center and the Department of Developmental Services. Still others criticize the Sacramento district attorney or the local court system for failing to adhere to timelines dictated by the law.Attorney Aaron Fischer,Patel, of the Department of Developmental Services, said Mays’ case was complicated by a number of factors: Mays had moved recently to California from out of state and was not on the radar of the regional center.

The jury deadlocked Nov. 20, 2015, according to the court record; the judge declared a mistrial. The district attorney requested a new jury trial. Over the years, according to letters obtained by CalMatters, Kitt developed serious reservations about Mays’ case. Patel, of the Department of Developmental Services, said the department has made changes in the years since Mays’ arrest that specifically affect people with developmental disabilities who are found incompetent.

The Department of State Hospitals is also tackling the issue. Last year, the California Health & Human Services Agency and the Department of State Hospitals convened a work group, which issuedto the backlog. Many of the proposed solutions echoed those in the State Justice Institute report.

 

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This is unacceptable RobBonta KamalaHarris SecBecerra. All jails and prisons should have a centralized database the Attorney General of each state should be able to pull up at a moment's notice to see such cases are piling up -- and address them!

We need to ensure no one needs to wait more than six months before standing trial in California RobBonta. The court system is antiquated. Please institute reforms and update technology to improve efficiency!

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