Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt talks about slowly taking away income tax during an October press conference at the Oklahoma State Capitol. (Photo by Kyle Phillips/For Oklahoma Voice)
OKLAHOMA CITY – Efforts to settle a class action lawsuit against the state appear to have hit a brick wall.
The Contingency Review Board on Wednesday voted 2-0 to send the federal judge overseeing the case a letter outlining concerns about a potential settlement agreement between the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services and plaintiffs.
The civil rights class action lawsuit alleges the state agency is violating the due process rights of mostly indigent defendants declared incompetent to stand trial and being held in county jails.
The suit alleged the state was failing to provide timely court-ordered competency restoration treatment to defendants, who in some cases, had been waiting for many months while their criminal cases remained on hold.
Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond, who is representing the mental health department, skipped the meeting, telling Gov. Kevin Stitt, who chairs the panel, that the meeting was premature because no consent decree has been approved to settle the case.
“Your zeal to proceed out of order strikes me as more political theater than clear-eyed leadership,” Drummond wrote. “My objective is to support victims of crime, not to provide cover for a state agency that has failed to do its job for the last six years.”
He said that the settlement agreement his office has negotiated with the plaintiffs would save the state “many millions of dollars” and “deliver long-delayed justice for crime victims while ensuring due process.”
The settlement of certain cases requires the approval of the Contingency Review Board when lawmakers are not in session.
The bulk of the meeting consisted of Gov. Kevin Stitt posing questions to mental health Commissioner Allie Friesen.
Friesen said she told Drummond multiple times that she would not agree to the consent decree as drafted.
She said the decree removes her ability to help those in a jail-based setting.
“I cannot and will not agree to withholding services from those that are suffering,” she said.
The document removes the ability of clinicians and experts to drive evidence-based care and places those decisions in the hands of attorneys, she said.
“It positions the department for immediate violation of court orders to provide competency restoration services to those in need, and puts the state on a conveyor belt of endless fines and contempt citations that will result in additional financial burdens,” Friesen said.
It removes her authority to authorize when individuals should be moved to the Oklahoma Forensic Center in Vinita, she said.
The agency has restored 216 people back to competency since January 2023 through jail-based competency restoration programs, she said.
The decree could cost taxpayers about $142 million, she said, adding that it would impact the agency’s ability to provide other services.
Under questioning from House Speaker Charles McCall, R-Atoka, Friesen said the proposal is similar to the Pinnacle Plan, implemented after a class action lawsuit challenging how the state treated children in foster care.
She said it has the same attorneys, a similar structure and no reasonable timeframe to end.
Stitt said the state has spent more than $400 million on the Pinnacle Plan, including $18 million on consultants.
Friesen said the concerns can be solved without the settlement agreement.
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