Fla. Agency Head (DCF) Threatened With Jail

[DoYouEverWonder]

November 22, 2006

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- A judge threatened to jail the head of the state Department of Children & Families if the agency can't explain why it consistently has failed to get mentally ill jail inmates into psychiatric treatment.

Under Florida law, jail inmates found incompetent to stand trial must be turned over to the agency and placed into treatment within 15 days.

An assistant public defender in Miami, Carlos Martinez, said the average wait time had spiked to more than two months, and his office and public defenders in Broward and Hillsborough counties have filed court motions to force DCF to treat the inmates.

Circuit Judge Crockett Farnell found the agency in contempt last week and ordered fines. On Tuesday, he went further, ordering DCF Secretary Lucy Hadi to appear in court next month to answer why she shouldn't be held in contempt for failing to abide by the law. She could face more than two years in jail.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-mentally-ill-inmates,0,4097045.story?coll=sns-ap-nation-headlines

Of course Lucy Hadi is a Jeb appointee. Heck of a job Lucy, heck of a job.

[graywarrior]

1. Take Jebby with her.....

[tanyev]

2. Is she over the Florida foster care program, too?

Scrutiny over missing foster children was spurred by the disappearance of 5-year-old Rilya Wilson in Florida, who was reported missing in April 2002 after a foster care worker failed to check up on her for 16 months. Wilson is still unaccounted for, and an initial review of the state foster system turned up nearly 1,000 missing children.

After authorities in Florida failed to locate about 400 of the 1,000 missing foster children by August, Gov. Jeb Bush ordered the creation of a strike-force of law enforcement and child welfare officials to track down the children.
http://www.stateline.org/live/ViewPage.action?siteNodeId=136&languageId=1&contentId=15013

[DoYouEverWonder]

5. Yes

the department has been a disaster under Jeb's tenure.

[anotherdrew]

3. explain why?> they're REPUBLICANS, it's their job to proove that government doesn't work

what the hell does anyone expect from this band of howling screech-monkeys? They SAY they HATE government. they say they want to END government except for national defense. They say all these things, then they get in there and prove themselves right by failing to even try to do their fracken jobs. It's pathetic and they should all be held for trail on intentional mal-administration and an utter failure to uphold their oaths.

This is standard best of breed republican hackery at it's finest.

[DoYouEverWonder]

4. It certainly is self defeating

to elect people to government, who hate government.

[Judi Lynn]

6. Wow! Throw the book at her, judge. She's REALLY got it coming.

From the St. Petersburg Times:

DCF chief may go to jail
Lucy Hadi faces contempt charges for failing to get mentally ill inmates out of jail.
By CHRIS TISCH, Times Staff Writer
Published November 22, 2006

If the head of the Florida Department of Children and Families doesn't get mentally ill inmates out of the Pinellas County Jail soon, she might join them behind bars.

A Pinellas judge Tuesday charged DCF Secretary Lucy Hadi with seven counts of indirect criminal contempt for failing to get the inmates out of the jail. The maximum penalty for each of those counts is five months and 29 days in jail.

Asked by the St. Petersburg Times whether he would jail Hadi, Circuit Judge Crockett Farnell responded: "Oh, I'd love to. I'll do whatever I have to do to get somebody's attention."

Farnell's order is the latest move by judges and lawyers statewide who are trying to clear local jails of the mentally ill.

Hadi is to be arraigned on the charges Dec. 14. It was unclear whether a state agency head has ever been jailed on contempt charges. Pinellas-Pasco Public Defender Bob Dillinger said he doesn't recall it happening in his 30-year legal career.

State law requires DCF to move mentally incompetent inmates out of local jails and into mental health facilities within 15 days. But the DCF wait list for beds swelled this year to more than 300 people, and inmates have languished in jail for an average of about three months. Some have harmed themselves during the long waits.
(snip/...)

http://www.sptimes.com/2006/11/22/State/DCF_chief_may_go_to_j.shtml



Lucy Hadi and her friend

[Joe Chi Minh]

7. Sweet justice! Officials being held to account seems unimaginable now,

doesn't it? At last, a God-fearing judge who has compassion on his afflicted brothers and sisters!

It's called "righteous anger", Can'ts'. It's a little foible Democrats share with Christ and John the Baptist. Not something to sneer at and pillory.

[rzemanfl]

8. This has been an ongoing problem for years. Don't buy any of

the spin that "they didn't know about the problem." These motions have been filed frequently in criminal cases going back at least to 2001 or 2002, to my own personal knowledge.

They are trying to blame their attorneys for their predicament.