26-year-old Hosanna Dinkins was found unresponsive in a cell alone at the jail. Jail officials say Dinkins was being held there on a probate order while waiting to be transported to a mental health facility.
Dinkins was not facing any criminal charges.
… According to jail officials, Dinkins was sent to jail on a probate order on June 28th. The order stated that she remain there until she could be transferred to a facility through the Department of Mental Health.
Dinkins father said he was told it would only take 13 days but 13 days turned into more than 30 days until Dinkins died in her cell on August 23rd. A preliminary autopsy from the Sumter County coroner rules out suicide as a cause of death and also shows no foul play.
Robinson says, “She should not have been detained here.”
Any lawyers out there? I don’t know the term “probate order” as it’s used in the article, and Google only wants to tell me about probate, the legal process of processing an estate after someone has died.
“Probate order” seems to be something else entirely.
In South Carolina, involuntary mental health commitments are handled through the Probate Court (no idea why) thus in that state a “probate order” is an order to have a person involuntarily committed. It’s the South Carolina version of Florida’s Baker Act:
https://www.disabilityrightssc.org/involuntary-mental-health-commitments/
Thanks for the info, kind stranger. :)
So… a mentally ill person needs care, but there are no slots open, so the judge has her stashed for a month in jail. The worst of American health care meets the worst of American police work. The only surprise is that she survived almost a month.