For the first time in more than two years, Oregon is in compliance with a long-standing federal court order aimed at protecting the rights of people with mental illness who have been charged with crimes.

On June 1, U.S. District Court Judge Adrienne Nelson tightened restrictions on who can be admitted to the hospital and how long those patients can be held there. A week later, June 8, was the state’s first day back in compliance.

Since 2002, the state has been under a federal court order that dictates how the criminal justice system treats mentally ill people in jail. If a state court judge finds that a defendant is unable to aid in their own criminal defense due to acute mental illness, that person must be removed from a county jail and admitted to the Oregon State Hospital within seven days. Failure to do so violates the constitutional rights of criminal defendants.

The state has struggled for years with complying. In 2025, Oregon was found in contempt of that order and began getting fined $500 per day for every person held too long in jail before being transferred to the state psychiatric hospital. Officials with the Oregon State Hospital told OPB the state currently faces nearly $4.5 million in fines as part of the contempt order.

Nelson determined on June 1 that the financial penalties were not enough to get the state to comply with the terms of the order. She then issued a new ruling that further limited who could be admitted to the state hospital and how long they can be held there.

Under the June order, people with “non-person Level C felony charges” that have a sentence of 90 days or less, and pretrial detainees being held in jail on a list of charges — which includes aggravated harassment, mail theft and identity theft — cannot be admitted to the Oregon State Hospital. The ruling also limited how long people sent to the hospital on violent felonies can have their stay extended past one year, narrowing it to a single 180-day extension.

The original case began after two nonprofits sued over the way the state dealt with mentally ill people charged with crimes. It’s been overseen by several federal judges, who’ve in recent years attempted to bring the state back into compliance.

“The Court had to do something while Oregon works toward fixing its neglected system, and Judge Nelson chose to limit access to the Oregon State Hospital to people charged with serious or violent crimes,” Jesse Merrithew, an attorney representing Metropolitan Public Defender, one of the groups behind the lawsuit, said in a statement. “The state of Oregon is now back into compliance with the constitution, and people suffering from severe mental illnesses are no longer languishing in jail cells.”

The last time the state was in compliance with the court order was in May 2024. A spokesperson for the hospital said it was too soon to say if it was a result of Nelson’s order.

“This is a positive development for Oregon Health Authority and Oregon State Hospital, but more importantly, this is good news for the people requiring admission,” spokesperson Amber Shoebridge said in a statement.

Months after new law begins, civil commitments are up in Oregon

Not everyone was pleased by the judge’s order.

District attorneys from Oregon’s three most populous counties held a news conference in Portland on June 15 where they condemned Nelson’s decision and pushed state officials to take a more active role in the case.

“We are currently dealing with a mental health crisis that’s affecting community safety,” Multnomah County District Attorney Nathan Vasquez told reporters. “We are operating under a very reckless and ill-conceived court order from the United States District Court.”

The three district attorneys said Nelson’s limits on access to the hospital mean some people charged with crimes can’t get the treatment that would allow their criminal case to move forward. As a result, they said, people charged with crimes have been released.

“There’s no other way to describe it other than decriminalization,” said Washington County District Attorney Kevin Barton. “It makes it impossible for us in the justice system to prosecute people who’ve committed a crime and to ensure that victims receive their day in court and that the public is safe.”

At the same time, Barton said they want to ensure there are enough mental health resources so people “don’t end up in the criminal justice system.”

The three district attorneys called for greater capacity for mental health treatment at all levels, something the state has actively been working on.

“We’re going to point the finger back at the governor, the state hospital and the Legislature to demand that they do their job to protect the community,” Clackamas County DA John Wentworth said.

Many mental health advocates argue Oregon has been overreliant on the state hospital, and has allowed the problem to languish for years. As a result, the state has not invested enough in mental health resources for people with less acute needs.

“The more that we use the hospital for lower level offenses, the less those beds are available for people who are in fact charged with serious offenses and those people go to, they spend more and more time in jail,” said Tom Stenson, deputy legal director for Disability Rights Oregon, the other plaintiff in the original lawsuit.

In the last 15 years, aid and assist patients have come to dominate the population at the state hospital. People committed to the hospital under Oregon’s civil commitment process, once the majority of patients, now take up a fraction of the facility’s beds.

In an attempt to reverse the trend, lawmakers revamped the state’s civil commitment laws last year. New standards that took effect in January theoretically make it easier for judges to order a person with severe mental illness into state custody, before they become ill enough to commit a crime.

Recent data suggests that law may be having an impact, but state officials say it’s too early to draw solid conclusions.

At a legislative hearing in Salem last week, lawmakers heard from those who want the state to invest more in care outside of the criminal justice system.

“Jails, prisons and commitments to state hospitals are the most restrictive alternatives that we have and yet we have nothing that’s one step below that or, we do, but we’re not enforcing it,” said Dr. Stephanie Maya Lopez, a psychiatric physician who testified on behalf of Oregon Psychiatric Physicians Association.

“I don’t want my patients to be arrested. I want them to have treatment.”

OPB’s Dirk VanderHart contributed to this article.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/06/22/oregon-state-hospital-compliance-judge-order/