Since its launch in July, the Denver County Court’s new competency support docket has seen more than 150 individuals, according to data provided by the court to Law Week.
As of Sept. 9, the court has heard 245 cases. The majority of the cases, 210, were misdemeanors, but the docket also heard 35 felony cases.
Presiding Judge Kerri Lombardi told Law Week via email that two issues drove the launch of the court’s new docket. “A backlog at the state mental health hospital, and inconsistencies in how competency cases were being handled across the courtrooms.”
“Cases were languishing due to the wait time in Pueblo which meant peoples’ needs were going unmet,” Lombardi added. “The idea for the Competency Support Docket emerged from our court employees and stakeholders who saw a need and came up with a solution to solve it by directing these resource intensive cases to one courtroom that is staffed with people fluent in these issues.”
The backlog stems from a number of issues, including a doubling of restoration treatment court orders between 2018 and 2022, according to the Colorado Office of Civil and Forensic Mental Health and a 20% decrease in state psychiatric hospital beds per 100,000 residents from 2016 to 2023, according to a report from the Treatment Advocacy Center.
What this means for individuals who require this competency restoration is long stays in the state’s services, with a mean length of stay of roughly 216 days in fiscal year 2022.
The issue has been a focus of the legislature in recent years. In its most recent session, the Colorado General Assembly passed House Bill 24-1355, which is directly aimed at reducing the competency waitlist in the state. The law went into effect on Aug. 7.
Lombardi said that the docket accepts all misdemeanor cases, and that there is a process in place for accepting felony cases when they are approved for competency diversion. “Assault-related charges, criminal mischief charges, and protection order violations are common for this specialty docket,” Lombardi said.
It took about a year from the conception of the idea to the implementation of the new docket, according to Lombardi.
“It was important that stakeholders had an early seat at the table because that allowed us to plan carefully and strategically, ” Lombardi said. “We ironed out issues in advance which was key to the docket running well.”
Now that the court is up and running, it’s averaging 70 cases a week, according to Lombardi. “You might say that we’ve been a victim of our own success due to the sheer number of case referrals to the Competency Support Docket,” Lombardi said.
The docket hasn’t just heard cases, it’s also referred services to more than 100 individuals. 55 individuals were referred to competency diversion, with 19 pending acceptance and 36 actively participating. 25 individuals were referred to Bridges of Colorado, 11 individuals were referred to work with peer specialists, five were referred for brain injury screening with Denver FIRST, three individuals are working with community service providers and two individuals were referred for hospitalization care.
One specific case Lombardi told Law Week about was a seriously ill individual who was in custody but needed hospital treatment.
“Thanks to the Competency Support Docket, we were able to coordinate his jail hold and get him transported to Denver Health in record time,” Lombardi said. “By having the stakeholders collocated through the Competency Support Docket, this person received the proper care in three days whereas before the docket launched, that transfer would have taken weeks.”