The facility's property previously served as a military arsenal during the Seminole Wars and the American Civil War, and later became the site of Florida's first state prison. It was subsequently refurbished as a mental hospital, originally known as Florida State Hospital for the Insane, which opened in 1876. It gained notoriety over the course of its long history. It was sued in O'Connor v. Donaldson, a case that went to the US Supreme Court, which ruled that the hospital had illegally confined one of its patients. The decision contributed to the deinstitutionalization movement, which resulted in changes to state laws and the closure of many public mental institutions in the country. The hospital today treats patients with severe mental disabilities who have been civilly or forensically committed to the institution.
In 1868, Florida Governor Harrison Reed converted the arsenal property at Chattahoochee into Florida's first penitentiary. Florida's first recorded inmate was Calvin Williams, incarcerated in Chattahoochee in November 1868 for the crime of larceny and sentenced to one year. By 1869 there were 42 inmates and 14 guards.
In 1871, the prison was put under civilian jurisdiction. Malachi Martin was appointed as warden, gaining a reputation for cruelty and corruption. He used prison labor for his personal benefit to build houses and tend his personal vineyards, amassing a huge fortune. The book The American Siberia, written in 1891, portrayed the Chattahoochee prison as a place of relentless barbarity. After the prisoners were relocated in 1876 to a prison at Raiford, Florida, the facility was adapted as a state hospital.[3]
Hospital
In 1876, the prison was refurbished and established by the Reconstruction era legislature as the Florida State Hospital for the Insane, the state's first mental institution. It was an effort by the legislature to establish some public welfare institutions to assist residents in the state.
Over time, the hospital was investigated for allegations of mistreatment of patients, especially as treatment standards changed.[citation needed]
The hospital was sued in O'Connor v. Donaldson (1975), a case that reached the United States Supreme Court. Kenneth Donaldson, a patient held there, sued the hospital and staff for confining him for fifteen years against his will. The court ruled that he had been illegally held.
The decision, as interpreted by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), means that it is unconstitutional to commit for treatment persons who are not imminently a danger to themselves or others and who are capable to a minimal degree of surviving on their own. This interpretation has hampered efforts to implement changes in commitment laws throughout the United States, as most states insist the person meet the "imminent danger" standard, accepting the ACLU's interpretation of the O'Connor v. Donaldson case.[4] The ruling contributed to the deinstitutionalization movement in the United States, resulting in the shutting down of many large, public psychiatric hospitals.
Current population
The hospital treats individuals with severe and persistent major mental illnesses. Two categories of patients are treated at the hospital; those civilly committed under Statute 394, who represent a small portion of the hospital's residents; and those forensically committed under Statute 916. The Civil portion of the hospital houses adult and elderly individuals who have been civilly committed to the hospital, and forensic residents who have been "stepped down" to the civil unit. The civil units are also known as Forensic Transition units.
Florida State Hospital also maintains a forensic wing for the Florida Department of Corrections to care for inmates who have been adjudicated through the criminal justice system to be incompetent to proceed to trial, or not guilty by reason of insanity. The current maximum housing capacity is 491 residents in civil units and 646 residents in forensic units.[5]
The goal of the hospital's efforts is recovery. The hospital works to restore competency to residents adjudicated incompetent to proceed to trial. Residents receive competency training in both forensic and civil units. The amount of time needed to restore competency varies from a month or two, to up to five years. However, by statute, a patient cannot be committed for more than five years as incompetent to proceed. Upon five years of commitment that patient will be returned to court to have his/her charges dropped or commuted in some way. For residents adjudicated not guilty by reason of insanity, the hospital works to assist the resident in transitioning back into community living by learning appropriate activities for daily living, and social cues. Hospital staff ensure the resident is no longer at risk of reoffending before recommending to the judge that the patient is ready for a conditional release to the community. Unlike patients committed as "Incompetent to Proceed," those committed as "Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity" have no time limit on their commitment. They can remain committed by their presiding judge until their recovery is complete.[6]
Competency to be executed
One of the tasks of the forensic psychologists in the forensic wing is to evaluate an inmate's competency to be executed, as common law holds that the insane cannot be executed.[7][8] This is a result of Ford v. Wainwright (1986). A Florida inmate on death row appealed his case to the United States Supreme Court, declaring he was not competent to be executed. The court ruled that a forensic professional must make that evaluation and, if the inmate is found incompetent, provide treatment to aid in his gaining competency so the execution can take place.[9] Providing treatment to an individual to enable that person to become competent to be executed puts mental health professionals in an ethical dilemma.[10]
Historic place
Hospital Administration Building
The former arsenal and current Administration Building of Florida State Hospital is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.[1] Built in 1839 as the U.S. Arsenal-Officers Quarters, it is a two-story masonry brick main building, with 1+1⁄2-story wings and front and rear porches framed with carved brackets.[11]
Ruby McCollum, was a married African-American woman convicted of shooting and killing a prominent white doctor, C. Leroy Adams in Live Oak, Florida; she said he forced her to have sex and to bear his child. Her conviction was overturned on appeal by a technicality, and she was ruled mentally incompetent to go to a second trial. She was committed to the hospital in 1954 and released under the Baker Act in 1974. In the 21st century, at least three new books have been published about her case, and two documentary films have been made, one in 2013 and one in 2014.
John William Clouser, the "Florida Fox," was a former police detective who appeared for a time on the FBI Most Wanted List. Clouser escaped FSH in 1967 after having previously been committed in the wake of a kidnapping and armed robbery. He turned himself in to authorities 1974.
Devon Arthurs, An 18-year-old convert to Salafist Islam who killed two of his Neo Nazi roommates for disrespecting his conversion.
Jesse Delbert Daniels, disabled man who was accused of a rape in Tavares before being committed to the state hospital for 14 years without ever standing trial before finally being released on appeal.[12]
↑ Heilbrun, K.; Radelet, M. L.; Dvoskin, J. (1992). "The debate on treating individuals incompetent for execution". The American Journal of Psychiatry. 149 (5): 596–605. doi:10.1176/ajp.149.5.596. PMID1349457.
The insanity defense, also known as the mental disorder defense, is an affirmative defense by excuse in a criminal case, arguing that the defendant is not responsible for their actions due to a psychiatric disease at the time of the criminal act. This is contrasted with an excuse of provocation, in which the defendant is responsible, but the responsibility is lessened due to a temporary mental state. It is also contrasted with the justification of self defense or with the mitigation of imperfect self-defense. The insanity defense is also contrasted with a finding that a defendant cannot stand trial in a criminal case because a mental disease prevents them from effectively assisting counsel, from a civil finding in trusts and estates where a will is nullified because it was made when a mental disorder prevented a testator from recognizing the natural objects of their bounty, and from involuntary civil commitment to a mental institution, when anyone is found to be gravely disabled or to be a danger to themself or to others.
St. Elizabeths Hospital is a psychiatric hospital in Southeast Washington, D.C. operated by the District of Columbia Department of Mental Health. The hospital opened in 1855 under the name Government Hospital for the Insane, the first federally operated psychiatric hospital in the United States.
Chattahoochee is a city in Gadsden County, Florida, United States. Its history dates to the Spanish era. It is part of the Tallahassee, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 2,955 as of the 2020 census, down from 3,652 at the 2010 census.
Forensic psychiatry is a subspeciality of psychiatry and is related to criminology. It encompasses the interface between law and psychiatry. According to the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, it is defined as "a subspecialty of psychiatry in which scientific and clinical expertise is applied in legal contexts involving civil, criminal, correctional, regulatory, or legislative matters, and in specialized clinical consultations in areas such as risk assessment or employment." A forensic psychiatrist provides services – such as determination of competency to stand trial – to a court of law to facilitate the adjudicative process and provide treatment, such as medications and psychotherapy, to criminals.
In United States and Canadian law, competence concerns the mental capacity of an individual to participate in legal proceedings or transactions, and the mental condition a person must have to be responsible for his or her decisions or acts. Competence is an attribute that is decision-specific. Depending on various factors which typically revolve around mental function integrity, an individual may or may not be competent to make a particular medical decision, a particular contractual agreement, to execute an effective deed to real property, or to execute a will having certain terms.
O'Connor v. Donaldson, 422 U.S. 563 (1975), was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court in mental health law ruling that a state cannot constitutionally confine a non-dangerous individual who is capable of surviving safely in freedom by themselves or with the help of willing and responsible family members or friends. Since the trial court jury found, upon ample evidence, that petitioner did so confine respondent, the Supreme Court upheld the trial court's conclusion that petitioner had violated respondent's right to liberty. The case was important in the deinstitutionalization movement in the United States.
Panetti v. Quarterman, 551 U.S. 930 (2007), is a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States, ruling that criminal defendants sentenced to death may not be executed if they do not understand the reason for their imminent execution, and that once the state has set an execution date death-row inmates may litigate their competency to be executed in habeas corpus proceedings. This decision reaffirmed the Court's prior holdings in Ford v. Wainwright, and Stewart v. Martinez-Villareal.
The forensic Conditional Release Program (CONREP) is the California Department of State Hospitals' statewide system of community-based services for specified forensic patients. It was mandated as a state responsibility by the Governor's Mental Health Initiative of 1984 and began operations on January 1, 1986.
Ford v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 399 (1986), was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld the common law rule that the insane cannot be executed; therefore the petitioner is entitled to a competency evaluation and to an evidentiary hearing in court on the question of their competency to be executed.
In the United States criminal justice system, a competency evaluation is an assessment of the ability of a defendant to understand and rationally participate in a court process.
Foucha v. Louisiana, 504 U.S. 71 (1992), was a U.S. Supreme Court case in which the court addressed the criteria for the continued commitment of an individual who had been found not guilty by reason of insanity. The individual remained involuntarily confined on the justification that he was potentially dangerous even though he no longer suffered from the mental illness that served as a basis for his original commitment.
Perry v. Louisiana, 498 U.S. 38 (1990), was a United States Supreme Court case over the legality of forcibly medicating a death row inmate with a mental disorder, to render him competent to be executed.
Frendak v. United States, 408 A.2d 364 is a landmark case in which District of Columbia Court of Appeals decided that a judge could not impose an insanity defense over the defendant's objections.
Rogers v. Okin was a landmark case in which the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit considered whether a person diagnosed with mental illness committed to a state psychiatric facility and assumed to be competent, has the right to make treatment decisions in non-emergency conditions.
Matteawan State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, established in 1892 as the Matteawan State Hospital by an 1892 law, functioned as a hospital for insane criminals. It was located in the town of Fishkill just outside the city of Beacon, New York; today its buildings form part of Fishkill Correctional Facility.
Jones v. United States, 463 U.S. 354 (1983), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the court, for the first time, addressed whether the due process requirement of the Fourteenth Amendment allows defendants, who were found not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI) of a misdemeanor crime, to be involuntarily confined to a mental institution until such times as they are no longer a danger to themselves or others with few other criteria or procedures limiting the actions of the state.
Bridgewater State Hospital, located in southeastern Massachusetts, is a state facility housing the criminally insane and those whose sanity is being evaluated for the criminal justice system. It was established in 1855 as an almshouse. It was then used as a workhouse for inmates with short sentences who worked the surrounding farmland. It was later rebuilt in the 1880s and again in 1974. As of January 6, 2020 there were 217 inmates in general population beds. The facility was the subject of the 1967 documentary Titicut Follies. Bridgewater State Hospital falls under the jurisdiction of the Massachusetts Department of Correction but its day to day operations is managed by Wellpath, a contracted vendor.
United States federal laws governing offenders with mental diseases or defects provide for the evaluation and handling of defendants who are suspected of having mental diseases or defects. The laws were completely revamped by the Insanity Defense Reform Act in the wake of the John Hinckley Jr. verdict.
The East Louisiana State Hospital is a state-operated mental hospital located on Louisiana Highway 10, a short distance east of the town of Jackson, Louisiana in East Feliciana Parish.
Morton Birnbaum was an American lawyer and physician who advocated for the right of psychiatric patients to have adequate, humane care, and who coined the term sanism.
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