Rachel Mullins feared her daughter Marquisha would die in the St. Louis County Jail, where the 40-year-old had been detained since April following arrest for allegedly brandishing a knife at a neighbor. It was Marquisha’s first criminal charge, stemming from behavior around a neighbor’s dog that frightened her. She was charged with a felony count of unlawful use of a weapon.
Marquisha has serious mental health issues rooted in a car accident at age 9 that left her in a coma with permanent brain trauma, later complicated by epilepsy diagnosis. Her public defender, Matthew Mueller, recognized mental illness as central to the case, likely preventing trial. In August, Mueller filed for mental examination to determine trial competency or transfer to the Department of Mental Health for treatment.
State law mandates examinations within 60 days of judicial order, but the Department of Mental Health lacked adequate staff. Examination delays continued. Marquisha remained in custody with minimal mental health care access while her case stalled. Approximately 500 individuals across Missouri’s city and county jails have received judge’s orders remanding them to the Department of Mental Health, but remain incarcerated because the state lacks sufficient mental health beds—sometimes for a year or longer.
For defendants like Marquisha, the situation creates an impossible bind: stuck in jail unable to receive needed treatment, and without treatment, unable to leave jail. Mueller started asking courts to release clients or mandate timely state service. Last month, attorneys filed a federal class action lawsuit stating: “This problem is pervasive, persistent, and worsening. Missouri’s jails have become de facto mental health wards, with terrible outcomes.”
The Bail Project paid Marquisha’s bail, enabling her release. However, she subsequently suffered an epileptic seizure and hospitalization, forcing restart of mental health services interrupted by her eight-month incarceration.
This article is an AI-assisted summary. All facts and figures are drawn from the original report: https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/column/tony-messenger/article_0a2ac79c-d29f-4f7e-8586-ce8b9d78d0ae.html