CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19) RESOURCE CENTER Read More
Add To Favorites

Attorneys for federal, state government, clash over scope of mental health remedy

Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal - 7/12/2021

Jul. 13—JACKSON — Attorneys for the federal government and for Mississippi agree that the state needs to improve access to mental health services — but that's about the only thing they can agree on.

In a wide-ranging hearing at the federal courthouse in Jackson on Monday, attorneys representing the U.S. Department of Justice and the state of Mississippi disagreed sharply over what type of plan the court should order, if any, to ensure the state improves access to community mental health.

The DOJ is requesting the court issue a plan with increased community mental health services and rigorous accountability to ensure that the state follows through with its commitments to improve health access.

"The United States has put forth a narrowly tailored plan fulfilling the major gaps the court has identified," Deena Fox, a DOJ attorney, said.

Attorneys representing the state, on the other hand, believe that the state has made significant strides in the past two years, which should be enough for the court to essentially dismiss any pending litigation.

"The DOJ argues its proposal is narrowly tailored," Jim Shelson, an attorney representing the state, said. "It's anything but narrowly tailored."

Shelson argued that the federal government's request goes beyond the minimum requirements laid out in the Americans with Disabilities Act and place an undue burden on the state.

Dr. Michael Hogan, the special master advising the court on mental health systems, primarily sided with the state.

However, Hogan admitted that he has not validated the state's data on services to ensure that the services on paper match what is the reality across the state.

Federal mental health litigation has long history

The federal government began investigating the state's mental health system 10 years ago, and it concluded that Mississippi was unnecessarily segregating people with mental health into state-run hospitals for lengthy periods of time.

The state initially attempted to enter into a remediation process with the federal government, but that process eventually collapsed. The justice department then sued the state in 2016.

The state was forced to enter into a remedial process after Judge Reeves ruled in September 2019 that Mississippi was in violation of the federal Americans with Disabilities Act because there were inadequate resources in Mississippi communities to treat people with mental illnesses effectively.

It's been five years since the justice department first filed suit against the state, which could be felt by attorneys present in the courtroom. The justice department attorneys were supposed to catch a flight on Monday afternoon, but those plans were delayed because of the lengthy court proceedings.

To add levity amid the seriousness of the litigation, Reeves asked the DOJ attorneys to "spend as much money as you can" in Jackson on Monday night since they missed their flight.

"We've tried to do that the past five years," Fox jokingly responded.

Though made in jest, the exchange underscores the years-long back and forth of briefs and arguments that have stemmed from the litigation, with only a small hope of an end in sight.

As the federal litigation continues to linger over the state, the question of how to end the complex suit was discussed.

Potential appeal could further delay a resolution

Reeves spent a considerable amount of time at the hearing asking questions to both parties about the parameters an external monitor should work within, hinting that the court will likely appoint a monitor.

The monitor remains a major sticking point for the state, which has been outright opposed to one.

Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch told the Daily Journal in May that appealing a potentially adverse ruling to the United States Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit was not out of the question.

If the state were to appeal the ruling, it would extend the timeline of the lawsuit for months and maybe even years, a fact which Reeves highlighted.

Reeves appeared to extend an olive branch to the state by asking attorneys to consider submitting briefs to help define what bringing the state's mental health system into compliance should look like.

"Shouldn't we give the parties an opportunity to define the goalposts?" Reeves asked.

Attorneys for the justice department argued that most of the proposals in their submitted plan have objective criteria for determining if the state has met its goals, while attorneys for the state argue that the time to establish goalposts was during the trial years ago.

Nonetheless, both attorneys and Reeves expressed a willingness to put the suit behind them and resolve the issues with the state's mental health system.

"We're not at the end of this, but we want to get to the end," Reeves said.

Reeves is expected to issue an order in the coming weeks on a final remedial plan.

taylor.vance@djournal.com

___

(c)2021 the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal (Tupelo, Miss.)

Visit the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal (Tupelo, Miss.) at www.djournal.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.