2015/05/01 – It’s been a long haul for two Hinds County inmates who are finally receiving mental health treatment after years behind bars.

Marktain Kilpatrick Simmons, 44, and Lee Vernel Knight, 47, are receiving psychiatric treatment in the Raymond jail while they wait for court-ordered spots in the State Hospital at Whitefield.

They have been in jail since 2006 and 2007, respectively. The system runs slowly when there are multiple mental evaluations in order, officials said.

The Clarion-Ledger reported on their long-term pretrial incarceration in 2014 and has since learned that both have been deemed mentally unfit to stand trial.

Public Defender Michelle Harris said her office has both cases and that it has been a long process.

“Without getting into too much information because of HIPAA laws, I’ll say there are issues involving their mental capacity, and those issues have been brought to the court’s attention,” she said.

Both have been adjudicated, said District Attorney Robert Shuler Smith, and are receiving psychiatric treatment in the jail as ordered by the court.

“We’ve exhausted all our remedies until further order of the court,” Smith said.

Smith did not say when the two men were adjudicated.

In Mississippi, mentally ill inmates can be housed in county jails as they await mental evaluation or transfer to a mental facility.

Asked why the two men were still in jail instead of receiving treatment at the state mental hospital and how that process works, Mississippi Department of Health spokesman Tim Durr said he couldn’t go into detail about the men’s cases.

“We usually do not comment on individual cases for privacy considerations, but generally, once all requested information is received and reviewed and there is an available admission bed, evaluations are scheduled within a matter of weeks,” Durr said.

Kilpatrick was jailed in November 2006 in the stabbing death of Christopher Joiner, whom officials said he stabbed after demanding money from him in a parking lot.

On Dec. 11, 2006, Hinds County Judge Bill Gowan denied bond for Simmons and said he wouldn’t consider bond until he knew more about his history of mental problems.

Hinds County Sheriff’s Department records at the time showed Simmons was arrested in 2003 on a lunacy-dangerous complaint. His 2005 arrest was for a lunacy non-dangerous charge. Simmons was last released from the State Hospital at Whitfield in July 2005, court records show.

Knight, 48, has been in the Raymond facility since December 2007, accused in the Christmas Day stabbing death of his brother, Michael Palmer. Knight was known to have mental health issues.

Knight was committed to Whitfield based on a complaint from his mother, Annie Knight, in August 2006, records show. Lee Knight, diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, lived in his mother’s north Jackson home after his release from Whitfield and, according to court records, was referred to Hinds Behavioral Health Services in Jackson for treatment.

In June 2013, Gowan ordered Knight to be committed to Whitfield, but at the time it was an 18-month to two-year wait to get in.

Now, going on two years later, Knight is still waiting on that spot.

“Unfortunately it’s a long process when you’re talking about mental issues because there’s more than just the court system involved,” Harris said.

It can be case-to-case when it comes to the inmates as well, Smith said.

“Each defendant is different, so some cases may be disposed of earlier and some take a little longer,” he said.

Source: The Clarion-Ledger 

Therese Apel