After a 10-year legal battle, Senior U.S. District Judge David Ezra ruled that Texas’ mental health waitlist system violates the 14th Amendment due process rights of mentally incompetent jail detainees.
When a Texas court finds someone mentally incompetent, they are ordered to a state hospital for treatment — but hospitals have been full for years. Over 1,600 people were still waiting as of March 2026. At its worst, the average wait reached 827 days. A state audit found at least 54 people died before receiving treatment between 2018 and 2023.
The court has ordered Texas HHS to admit incompetent jail detainees within 21 days of a court order — and has given the state four years to come into compliance.
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Krish Gundu, Executive Director of Texas Jail Project, said it plainly:
“We wait for a crime — and God forbid a victim — to then push them into the forensic system. If we provided the right care, at the right time and the right place, we would not be in this situation today.”
She called on the state to immediately implement Rider 56 — a provision already passed in Senate Bill 1 that would create intermediate care for people who no longer need a state hospital but are not ready to return to the community. Many of these individuals would have qualified for civil commitment long before a crime ever occurred. The system failed them first.
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The state is expected to appeal. Source: KXAN Investigations, July 9, 2026.