‘Like a war crime.’ Mentally ill Frankfort woman moves from streets to jail.

Yet her condition is no better, according to court records, and most recently, she has spent 336 days in the Franklin County Regional Jail, in between brief hospital stays, on a charge of assaulting a corrections officer.

In a court filing, Richard LeMay, assistant jailer, called her confinement – in isolation because of volatile behavior – “shameful.”

“Mental illness is not a crime,” he said in an affidavit seeking the court’s help in finding better care for the woman whom the Kentucky Lantern is not identifying to protect her privacy. “The revolving door between the hospital and the jail are causing her decline.”

Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd recently appointed Lexington lawyer Bruce Simpson as a guardian ad litem to represent the woman’s interests.

“This is a grossly inhumane way to treat people,” Simpson said.

In a June 8 order appointing Simpson to the case, Shepherd said it had become “glaringly obvious” that the cycle of jail and short-term hospitalization was not working, directing the various officials involved in the case to find a better solution.

Simpson said he hopes his client’s story shows flaws in the system when it comes to people with severe mental illness who wind up incarcerated after they fail to get appropriate care.

“This is a case that needs some attention,” he said. “It’s like a war crime.”

Mental health advocates say that the case, while extreme, illustrates the gap in the system where people with severe mental illness repeatedly wind up in jail or prison for the seeming lack of a better solution.

“We know we don’t have the appropriate facilities for people who are so extremely ill,” said Kelly Gunning, director of advocacy for the National Alliance on Mental Illness-Lexington. “I think people are still falling through the cracks because we don’t have enough of the right facilities … Jail is the worst place, but the street is no better.”

The national move in the 1960s and 70s to deinstitutionalize those with mental illness has resulted in an unfortunate outcome, said Lyndon Pryor, president of the Louisville Urban League.

“That is what we used to do with insane asylums,” he said “It was to discard people and put them in a place never to be seen again. Unfortunately, our jails and prisons have become that.”

NAMI’s national office estimates that two in five of individuals in jail or prison have a history of mental illness and many with a serious illness are held in solitary confinement.

‘A tough case’

Simpson acknowledges he’s facing a challenge, with a client who hears voices, believes she is in contact with demons, can be violent, has threatened to kill herself or others, and has a history of using substances including alcohol, marijuana, cocaine and methamphetamine.

She’s been charged with multiple offenses, starting at age 10, including assault, trespassing, threatening behavior and, most recently, a felony for an alleged assault that injured a jail office last year, according Simpson’s recent report to the court. She has no immediate relatives able to care for her and recently, was appointed a state guardian to make decisions on her behalf.

“It’s a tough case, I get that,” he said. But, “she’s a human being who deserves better than what she’s received. She doesn’t have the wherewithal to take care of herself. To treat her like she’s been treated is unconscionable.”

After Simpson’s intervention in the case in June, the woman was moved from jail to the Kentucky Correctional Psychiatric Center, or KCPC, for treatment at the state prison facility.

But it took a convoluted series of steps by court officials just to get the temporary placement at KCPC.

In late 2025, her lawyer sought a competency evaluation from KCPC, a step toward getting long-term treatment, according to court records. Her lawyer also reached an agreement with prosecutors to amend the pending felony charge of assaulting a jail officer to a misdemeanor in hopes that would make her a better candidate for long-term care at Eastern State Hospital – a psychiatric facility where the woman had been hospitalized for repeated, short-term stays.

But the hospital declined to accept her as a long-term patient and simply medicated and returned her to jail, a court order from Shepherd said.

Meanwhile, KCPC rejected the request for a psychiatric evaluation, stating by law it can only provide competency evaluations for those with pending felony charges and this patient’s charge had been reduced to a misdemeanor.

So, to obtain the competency evaluation, officials had to reinstate the felony charge. The evaluation has since been conducted and the patient has been deemed incompetent to stand trial, according to court records.

Jeff Edwards, director of Kentucky Protection and Advocacy, said the cycle of jail and hospital doesn’t help anyone

“Prolonged hospitalizations or incarcerations do not address the needs of people with mental illness, families, and communities,” he said in an email.   

Simpson, in his report to the court, said the state mental health system overall needs to find a better way to plug holes that lead to breakdowns in care.

“The case should not become a debate over who is to blame for the past. It should become a determination on who will accept responsibility for the future,” it said. “A revolving door is not a treatment plan.”

Some progress

Gunning, a mental health advocate for 35 years, said that overall, Kentucky’s public mental health system has made important progress in recent years.

“There has been a lot of evolution in Kentucky in mental health,” she said. “We have a lot of resources we didn’t have before.”

Still, she acknowledges, there are gaps in the system especially when it comes to severely mentally ill people who may resist treatment and refuse medication. The use of substances, such as drugs or alcohol, exacerbates the problem, Gunning said.

Sometimes, it’s just the lack of a “clear plan” for such individuals, she said.

Funding is an ongoing struggle for mental health services, but Gunning said safe, affordable housing is one of the most urgent needs.

“Where are these folks going to be able to live?” she said. “Now it’s so difficult to find a place for people.

“I think if I was doing this to a pet, I would be in jail,” Gunning said. “We need a humane society for humans.”

The ‘least of these’

Still, some improvements are coming, advocates say.

The 2026 General Assembly passed legislation that makes it easier for a judge to order involuntary commitment to a psychiatric facility for someone in a mental health crisis.

Previously the law, which had not been updated for decades, required an individual to be an “imminent threat” to himself or others, said Dr. Sheila Schuster, a longtime advocate and executive director of the Kentucky Mental Health Coalition.

“Just being psychotic is not necessarily cause for civil commitment,” she said. 

The new law, which takes effect in October, expands the judge’s options to order someone for a psychiatric hospitalization and also requires the judge to consider previous petitions for commitment – usually filed by a relative. It also requires mental health professionals evaluating the subject to attempt to contact the relative or other party who filed the petition to get more information about their concerns.

And a recent policy change by the state Cabinet for Health and Family Services could help with the lack of long-term placements for people with severe mental illness, Schuster said.

The state is establishing Medicaid-funded placements in small group homes for individuals with mental illness with staff to supervise medication and other needs, Schuster said. It’s just getting started but could be promising, she said.

“A year from now it will be interesting to see where we are with this,” she said. “These are people at risk for homelessness.”

Simpson said his goal for his client is to get her stabilized through treatment and medication at KCPC,  returned to Franklin Circuit Court to resolve the pending assault charge and placed somewhere to get the ongoing help she needs.

“It would seem to me she’s going to need long-term support with management on medication,” he said. 

Meanwhile, Simpsons said he hopes the case highlights the need for help for those in similar situations unable to advocate for themselves.

His client “is the quintessential ‘least of these’ folks that too many of us just ignore,” he said. “The severely mentally ill are the most disenfranchised, marginalized folks in our community.”