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PRESS RELEASE: Disability Rights Maryland Files Lawsuit Against Maryland Department of Health Over the State’s Practice of Indefinitely Detaining Criminal Defendants with Disabilities Deemed Incompetent to Stand Trial

CONTACT: Luciene Parsley, DRM Litigation Counsel, LucieneP@DisabilityRightsMD.org, 443-692-2494

BALTIMORE, MD — On January 9, 2025, Disability Rights Maryland, Inc. (DRM), represented by the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs and co-counsel Wiley Rein LLP, filed a lawsuit against the Maryland Department of Health (MDH) and Dr. Laura Herrera Scott, in her official capacity as Secretary of the MDH.  The lawsuit challenges MDH’s continuous failure to provide timely and appropriate mental health care and supportive services to criminal defendants who have been deemed incompetent to stand trial (IST) as is required by Maryland law.

Maryland Code Ann., Crim. Proc. §3-106(c)(2)(i) requires MDH to transfer individuals found IST and dangerous to a designated health care facility within 10 business days of MDH’s receipt of the court’s order for the purpose of competency restoration and treatment.  However, as set forth in the complaint, MDH has persistently failed to fulfill this obligation, leaving more than 200 IST-adjudicated defendants statewide languishing in jails and other correctional facilities — some for weeks to months at a time.  The complaint further alleges that MDH is violating the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act by over-designating criminal defendants as dangerous and failing to provide competency restoration in the most integrated setting available.  Over forty percent of IST-adjudicated defendants who are indefinitely detained were charged with misdemeanor offenses or non-violent felonies.  DRM believes many of these individuals were improperly labeled as dangerous and that many who are currently languishing in jails could likely be restored to competency in the community if they were provided with appropriate supports.

“Leaving people with disabilities in jail deprives them of needed services and supports and has no rational relationship to moving them through the criminal process,” said Luciene Parsley, Litigation Director at Disability Rights Maryland.  “We have received complaints about horrific conditions that individuals are kept in, such as being forced to sleep on the floor or maintained in solitary confinement for extended periods of time.”

The lawsuit highlights the devastating consequences of MDH’s inaction, detailing cases of Marylanders who were held in inhumane conditions and deprived of appropriate support as a direct result of MDH’s failure to comply with state law requiring prompt transfer to appropriate healthcare facilities.  These individuals, all found IST, were confined in jails for prolonged periods without access to adequate mental health treatment or support, necessary medications, counseling, or basic care, leading to significant deterioration in their physical and mental health.

“Many of these individuals could be restored to competency in their own communities,” said Courtney Bergan, Equal Justice Works Fellow at Disability Rights Maryland.  “Doing so would be more effective and efficient for everyone.”

“Maryland’s legislature expressly noted the serious constitutional implications of subjecting IST-adjudicated individuals to indefinite jail detention, delaying their access to needed treatment, when it modified the existing law to require MDH to implement hospitalizations within a specific – and short – time period,” said Wiley Rein’s Pro Bono Partner, Ted Howard.  “MDH’s conscious and complete failure to comply with its statutory obligations in this regard is simply unacceptable and calls out for redress by the federal court.”

The lawsuit seeks declaratory and injunctive relief, asserting that the indefinite detention of IST-adjudicated individuals without treatment violates their rights under the U.S. Constitution, Article 24 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights, the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act.  DRM is demanding systemic reforms to address MDH’s ongoing failures and to ensure timely and appropriate care for IST-adjudicated individuals in the most integrated setting appropriate to their needs.

“Maryland’s competency system is deeply broken,” said Ryan Downer, Legal Director with the Washington Lawyers’ Committee.  “People determined by state courts to be in need of mental health services are instead left to rot in jail.  Our hope is that this lawsuit will jolt state officials awake.”

Read the filed complaint.

About Disability Rights Maryland

Disability Rights Maryland is the federally mandated protection and advocacy agency for the state of Maryland, working to protect people with disabilities from abuse, neglect, and rights violations. DRM advocates for systemic change, emphasizing the importance of self-determination, inclusion, and access to services and support in the most integrated setting available.

About the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs

The Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs works to create legal, economic, and social equity through litigation, client and public education and public policy advocacy.  While we fight discrimination against all people, we recognize the central role that current and historic race discrimination plays in sustaining inequity and recognize the critical importance of identifying, exposing, combatting, and dismantling the systems that sustain racial oppression.

About Wiley Rein LLP

Wiley Rein LLP is a preeminent law firm in Washington, DC that has earned international esteem by achieving legal, regulatory, and policy successes for many of the world’s leading companies, organizations, and startups.  The firm is consistently recognized for its strong commitment to pro bono work and service to the community, providing exceptional legal representation to support clients in achieving justice and equity.

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Nonpartisan Voting Rights Organizations Unite to Provide Hotlines, Resources, and Rides To the Polls

ANNAPOLIS, MD – Two Maryland voting rights coalitions – Everyone Votes Maryland and Expand the Ballot, Expand the Vote – have been extremely busy preparing for Election Day and ensuring that every Marylander knows their voting rights!

Below are some resources put together by coalition members to make sure that everyone has access to their fundamental right to vote. Coalition members coordinate and collaborate between hotlines to cover the entirety of Maryland and provide options for people who may be more comfortable calling one hotline over another.

Common Cause MD, state lead for 866-OUR-VOTE (866-687-8683)
866-OUR-VOTE is running a national election protection hotline for individual voters to ask questions and get more information about their voting options. The hotline is open from 9:00am (EDT) to 11:59 pm Monday through Friday and 10:00 am to 9:00pm on weekends. Their website also provides Maryland-specific information: https://866ourvote.org/state/maryland/

There will also be nearly 200 trained nonpartisan 866-OUR-VOTE volunteers monitoring polling locations in the largest precincts on Election Day. These volunteers assist with answering MD voter questions outside of the polls and report issues to the hotline and Common Cause MD.

ACLU-MD’s Election Protection Hotline: (667) 219-2625
ACLU-MD is running an election protection hotline to help Maryland voters with questions and concerns about voting in Maryland. Hotline staff can provide information about voter eligibility, voter registration, voting by mail, early voting, Election Day, drop boxes, and more. During early voting, 10/24 to 10/31, the hotline is open from 9:00am to 5:00pm. On Election Day, 11/5, the hotline is open from 7:00am to 8:00pm. More info at https://www.aclu-md.org/en/know-your-rights/voter-empowerment.

League of Women Voters of Montgomery County’s Hotline: (301) 984-9585
LWV Montgomery County is running a hotline on weekdays until Election Day, 11/5. Assistance is available in English from 10:00am to 4:00pm and in Spanish from 4:00pm to 7:00pm.

Disability Rights Maryland’s Hotline: (443) 692-2512 or Voting@DisabilityRightsMD.org
DRM is running an election protection hotline to provide voter assistance at the polls and help solve issues impacting people with disabilities. Staff are available to answer questions about accessible voting machines, access to ballots, and any accessibility challenges at polling sites. More info at: https://disabilityrightsmd.org/voting-2/

Expand the Ballot, Expand the Vote Outreach and GOTV
Expand the Ballot is campaigning to empower all Marylanders, with particular focus on those directly impacted by the criminal justice system. To do so, the coalition has engaged in street canvassing, held voter registration drives, and provided transportation to polling stations. This campaign is designed to ensure that individuals know they are eligible to vote even if they are in pre-trial detention, in a facility for a misdemeanor, or on parole or probation after their release. See more about the mission and purpose of the coalition below.

Life After Release and Black Voters Matter Street Canvassing
Life After Release is hitting the streets in Prince George’s County and Baltimore City in Black Voters Matters vans, visiting courthouses and community events to encourage community members to register to vote. The vans provide education, voter registration, and transportations to the polls. Street canvassing fosters genuine and impactful conversations, which are crucial for building trust among those who may feel excluded from the political process.

Need a ride to the polls?
Maryland Justice Project is providing rides to the polls in the Baltimore area. To request a ride, call 443-462-9271.

Maryland League of Conservation Voters Education Fund
Maryland LCV Education Fund is targeting GOTV efforts in Maryland to communities with high Latino populations that are traditionally underserved and overburdened. Our Chispa Maryland team has conducted outreach in communities that are defined by the Maryland General Assembly as “environmental justice” communities. The Fund has also created an online Voter Tool that creates a one-stop shop for eligible individuals to register to vote, find polling locations, request a mail-in ballot, and more. Learn more at: https://www.marylandconservation.org/elections or in Spanish at: https://www.marylandconservation.org/elections-2

National Multi-Language Hotlines

Spanish/English: 888-VE-Y-VOTA (888-839-8682)

Asian Languages/English: 888-API-VOTE (888-274-8683)

Arabic/English: 844-YALLA-US (844-925-5287)

 

About Expand the Ballot, Expand the Vote:
The Expand the Ballot Coalition consists of numerous organizations that have come together to stop voter suppression, ensuring that people who are currently and formerly incarcerated are aware of their right to vote and have access to voting regardless of their circumstances. Organizations in the coalition include Out for Justice, Life After Release, Maryland Justice Project, League of Women Voters, NAACP, Common Cause, Disability Rights Maryland, H.O.P.E., Campaign Legal Center, and ACLU of Maryland.

 

About Everyone Votes Maryland:
Everyone Votes is a coalition of good government, civil rights, environmental, labor, and grassroots organizations working toward increasing access to the ballot in Maryland

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Meghan Marsh Takes Helm as DRM’s New Executive Director

Meghan Marsh, DRMs New Executive Director

A MESSAGE FROM THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS:

It is with great excitement that we announce the appointment of Meghan Marsh, a 30-year veteran of the organization and dedicated disability rights advocate, as Disability Rights Maryland’s (DRM) next executive director. Meghan was selected after a national search performed by DRM’s Board of Directors.

“Meghan has been at the heart of DRM’s mission for 30 years and her dedication, passion and unwavering commitment have been the driving force behind so many of DRM’s achievements. We could not be more thrilled to have her as DRM’s new executive director, leading us through this next exciting chapter in the fight for disability rights and justice,” said Ryan S. Perlin, president of the DRM Board of Directors.

Meghan will be a familiar face to many as she has served DRM in several roles since joining in 1993. Most recently, she served as interim executive director since May. Her previous roles include intake specialist, staff attorney, communications manager, and deputy director. In the latter role, she led grant reporting and quality assurance. She also supervised DRM’s intake team and projects aimed at protecting the rights of Social Security beneficiaries with disabilities.

“For three decades, DRM has been my second home, and the fight for disability rights, my life’s work,” expressed Meghan Marsh, DRM’s executive director. “I have tremendous respect and admiration for the entire team at DRM. With kindness, courage, and persistence we can forge a future where every individual thrives, and so it is with great excitement and gratitude that I step into the role of executive director.”

Meghan holds a bachelor’s degree from Penn State University in social work and earned her law degree from the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law. In 2020, she was awarded the Benjamin L. Cardin Public Service Award by the Maryland Carey Law Alumni Board for her significant contributions to furthering the ideals of public service in the law. Meghan is also a certified mediator and a 2014 National Disability Rights Network leadership fellow. She served as an adjunct professor for seven years at the University of Maryland University College Graduate School of Business and Management teaching writing, statistics, and management classes to MBA candidates. 

Meghan will succeed DRM’s most recent executive director, Robin Murphy, who served the organization for the past six years successfully leading DRM through years of financial growth and unprecedented demand for services. Her tenure included guiding the organization through the COVID pandemic, navigating multiple challenges while ensuring the non-discriminatory provision of critically needed services for Marylanders with disabilities. Robin leaves DRM in a strong position as a robust statewide disability rights advocacy organization.

“Robin’s legacy with DRM will be as someone whose vision for the organization never wavered, and whose decisions were guided by one principled question: is this in the best interest of Maryland’s disability communities? The Board of Directors is grateful to Robin for her strong guiding principles and leadership as a steward of DRM’s mission,” added Perlin.

“Meghan knows DRM’s work inside and out and there is nobody more suited for this next chapter,” said Robin Murphy, DRM’s former executive director. “She’s intimately aware of the challenges facing Marylanders living with disabilities today and will bring her innovation and tenacity to addressing those challenges head-on.”  

We are so pleased to have Meghan leading the organization into this next chapter. She is committed to growing the organization’s strengths of advocacy, outreach and individual representation while expanding DRM’s commitment to building an intersectional approach to disability justice.

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PRESS RELEASE: Guardians Sue Maryland Seeking Limits on and Oversight of the Use of Powerful Psychotropic Medications for Children in Foster Care

January 17, 2023

MEDIA CONTACT

Megan Berger, Disability Rights Maryland, megan.berger@disabilityrightsmd.org
Meredith Curtis Goode, ACLU of Maryland, curtis@aclu-md.org
Camilla Jenkins, Children’s Rights, cjenkins@childrensrights.org


BALTIMORE, MD – Today, Disability Rights Maryland, the ACLU of Maryland, Children’s Rights, and Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP filed a lawsuit against the Maryland Department of Human Services (DHS) and Social Services Administration (SSA) on behalf of minor children in the State’s foster care system who are given one or more psychotropic medications. The lawsuit covers all jurisdictions except Baltimore City, which is covered through separate ongoing litigation involving children in foster care.

The lawsuit claims that for over a decade Maryland’s DHS and SSA have failed to exercise adequate oversight of children in foster care who are given potentially dangerous psychotropic drugs.

As many as 34% of children in Maryland’s foster care system are given psychotropic drugs, and more than half of those children are prescribed multiple drugs at the same time. Nearly 75% of these children who are taking psychotropic drugs do not have a psychiatric diagnosis. Black children, disproportionately represented in Maryland’s foster care system, are at greater risk of being subjected to dangerous prescribing practices in many counties.

The complaint outlines dangerous failures on the part of SSA and DHS to serve as effective custodians for the children in their care, including failing to compile and maintain adequate medical and mental health records, failing to implement an adequate informed consent process, and failing to operate an adequate secondary review system to conduct second opinion evaluations when necessary.

Up to 80% of U.S. children who enter state foster care systems have significant mental health needs, including the effects of trauma caused by having been taken from their families and loved ones. The uncertainties and instabilities associated with life in foster care often add to that trauma, leading children to display complex behaviors that require the attention of mental health professionals. Frequently psychotropic medications are administered, which can be of help to children, but only when sufficient oversight mechanisms are in place.

Psychotropic medications are powerful drugs that directly affect the chemicals in the brain that help to regulate emotions and behavior. Children face a great risk of harmful side effects including seizures, suicidal thinking and behavior, weight gain, excessive fatigue and chronic diseases such as diabetes. The likelihood of adverse effects of medication increases with the number of medications, and these side effects can be lifelong, continuing even after the medication is stopped.

The risks of harm from psychotropic medications are increased for children in government systems because they do not have a consistent interested party to coordinate their treatment. The fact that multiple people are involved in their care can result in poor recordkeeping and miscommunication leading to children being prescribed too many drugs, at too high a dosage, at too young an age. Children pay the price, which is unacceptable.

Y.A., a sixteen-year-old Black child who has been in the custody of Maryland’s DHS for over two years, is one of the named plaintiffs in the case. He has repeatedly cycled between hospitalizations and temporary motel stays, and today remains separated from his mother and confined to a residential treatment facility. Y.A. overdosed twice on his medications while living in the motel. He has suffered severe side-effects, including extreme weight gain, difficulty controlling his hands and arms, difficulty walking, dizziness, fatigue, stomach aches, and head-aches, all of which are known symptoms of one or more of the multiple psychotropic medications he is taking. Neither Y.A. nor his mother has been given adequate information about his medications, and no adult with authority to consent to his medications regularly attends Y.A.’s psychiatric appointments with him. He believes that DHS “doesn’t pay attention” to him.

“Now is the time for our state to address these systemic deficiencies and provide proper care for the children they promised to protect. With a new administration in Annapolis, a critical window has opened for Maryland to address past failures and meet its responsibility to support children in state custody. The children of Maryland deserve nothing less,” said Megan Berger, assistant managing attorney at Disability Rights Maryland.

“The lack of comprehensive recordkeeping for all children is exacerbated by the state’s failure to enforce a clear and unambiguous informed consent policy. Medications are approved without benefit of a child’s health history, leading to potentially life-threatening complications,” said Samantha Bartosz, deputy director of litigation at Children’s Rights. “Biological parents are often not engaged, and may not even be aware that their child is taking psychotropic drugs. Youth, too, have no voice in consequential health decisions impacting them. Instead they are forced to take medications against their will.”

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About Disability Rights Maryland

Disability Rights Maryland, Inc. (DRM), a non-profit organization, is Maryland’s designated Protection & Advocacy Agency federally authorized to advance and protect the civil rights of individuals with disabilities, including children and youth with mental health, developmental, and other disabilities. DRM works with people with disabilities to achieve full participation in community life, self-determination, equality, freedom from abuse and neglect, and access to civil rights. For more information, please visit www.disabilityrightsmd.org.

About the ACLU of Maryland

Founded in 1931, the ACLU of Maryland exists to empower Marylanders to exercise their rights so that the law values and uplifts their humanity. Our vision is for Maryland’s people to be united in affirming and exercising their rights in order to address inequities and fulfill the country’s unrealized promise of justice and freedom for all. www.aclu-md.org

About Children’s Rights

Every day, children are harmed in America’s child welfare, juvenile justice, education, and healthcare systems. Through relentless strategic advocacy and legal action, we hold governments accountable for keeping kids safe and healthy. Children’s Rights, a national non-profit organization, has made a lasting impact for hundreds of thousands of vulnerable children. For more information, please visit www.childrensrights.org.

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Maryland Kids in Distress

A group of friends with intellectual disabilities living a vibrant and happy life.
A group of friends with intellectual disabilities living a vibrant and happy life.

A recent in-depth article in the Baltimore Banner documents how children and young adults with behavioral health challenges are being housed long-term in hospital emergency rooms. Hundreds of individuals with complex needs are spending months if not years in health care facilities ill-equipped to serve them due to the severe shortage of appropriate placements. Part of the problem is that the state agencies involved are “not talking to each other in the way that they need to,” says DRM attorney Leslie Margolis. “These are systemic issues and they can’t be solved child by child by child.” DRM will continue to advocate on behalf of these individuals to address this growing problem and ensure that these individuals receive the appropriate services and supports to live productive lives in their own communities.

Read the article.

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