Celia Jiménez here, thinking about the process people facing criminal charges have to go through to determine if they can stand trial, and the consequences local government faces when the numbers of those who cannot are considered too high.
This week, my colleague Katie Rodriguez dived into this issue after County Administrative Officer Sonia De La Rosa brought it up at the Board of Supervisors meeting on July 1. De La Rosa shared that 44 and 84 individuals were unable to stand trial in 2022-23 and 2023-24, respectively. She also said the county owed the state $1.4 million in penalties because the county exceeded its state-set cap by 25 people for the 23-24 fiscal year.
“We have no control over this,” Supervisor Luis Alejo said. “We’re getting fined for some artificial number. Don’t penalize the county.”
I asked Rodriguez her thoughts about this issue. “Our baseline numbers—or cap—are based on counts from 2021, when we were still very much in the pandemic,” she says. “It makes you wonder what our true baseline number is—or whether you can even be certain about one at all.” Determining these numbers is complicated—highly dependent on things like the strength of social programs, mental health infrastructure and access to those resources.
Felony defendants undergo a series of evaluations and treatments to determine if they are fit to stand trial (treatment varies, including medication and outpatient care).
In her story, Rodriguez explains why the incompetent to stand trial process, known as IST, was established in California and the types of treatments defendants might receive.
If we looked at these numbers today, would we come up with the same results? Probably not. But perhaps the bigger question is this: how can the county reduce the number of these individuals and, in doing so, get mental health resources to people before they commit a felony?
(1) comment
Reading this opinion piece, I am struck by how sanitized the discussion of “artificial numbers” becomes when the broader context is ignored. The suggestion that Monterey County is somehow a passive victim of pandemic-era data is misleading. The very policies embraced by state and local leaders during the pandemic, including lockdowns, court delays, and the gutting of mental health outreach, fueled the rise in untreated mental illness and drug addiction. These weren’t random events. They were decisions made by elected officials, and they had devastating consequences.
I attend arraignments and trials in Salinas often. I see the direct line between unchecked mental illness and rising felony cases. This is not some data anomaly from 2021. It is a direct result of policy choices that left vulnerable people isolated, untreated, and spiraling into psychosis. The numbers are not artificial. The consequences are not theoretical.
If the county exceeded its cap, it is because it failed to invest in prevention, failed to strengthen the infrastructure that might have caught people before they broke. The penalty exists because a court had to force the state to treat these individuals with dignity. That the county is upset about paying fines shows a refusal to take accountability. Fix what you broke.
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