Editorial: Lakes Crossing delays

Friday, Sept. 2, 2005 | 9:35 a.m.

If a criminal defendant awaiting trial in Nevada is deemed to be mentally incompetent, he is sent to a high-security, state-run psychiatric facility in Sparks, where he stays at the Lakes Crossing Center for the Mentally Disordered Offender until treatment renders him fit to stand trial. Concerns have arisen that inmates from Southern Nevada, while waiting for transport to Lakes Crossing, are languishing in the Clark County Detention Center and not being provided proper care for unduly long periods of time. Although that much is certain, exactly why this is happening is not clear.

As the Las Vegas Sun's David Kihara reported Thursday, state officials in charge of Lakes Crossing say that the Clark County Detention Center is not sending them inmates as soon as they are ready; rather, the Clark County Detention Center waits until at least three inmates are ready and then transports them all together, causing the delays. County and court officials, however, say that the delays are because there isn't enough room at Lakes Crossing to admit inmates.

The Nevada Disability Advocacy Law Center filed a federal lawsuit in June, alleging that the delays, which sometimes can last months in getting inmates into Lakes Crossing, violated their due process rights. Rather than fingerpointing, state and local officials should sit down and figure out precisely why this problem is occurring and, in the interest of justice, devise a workable solution.