CLAYTON — Jason Handley appeared in the courtroom via video. He was wearing the brown smock of a detainee at the St. Louis County Jail, where he has been in custody for more than a year.

“Hi Dad,” he said, waving to his father, Eric Handley Sr., who was seated in the courtroom this past Tuesday.

The younger Handley, who is 23, is in legal limbo, stuck in jail even though a judge already ruled he doesn’t belong there.

Two years ago, Handley, who suffers from learning and mental disabilities, posted on Instagram, “I am a school shooter.” The picture showed him with a gun.

Police visited his father, who explained his son’s mental condition and that he had long ago gotten the gun out of the house. The principal at Parkway North High School, which Handley had referenced on social media, sent a note to parents saying an investigation concluded there was no danger.

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Later that year, Handley was charged with making a terrorist threat. He is being held without bond even though two psychological evaluations found him unfit to stand trial. That means he’s supposed to be transferred to the custody of the state Department of Mental Health for treatment.

But Missouri, like many other states, doesn’t have enough mental health beds to serve people like Handley. So they rot away in municipal and county jails even though, according to the legal system, their cases are in a state of suspension. When a person is found unfit to stand trial due to mental disability, their case goes on hold until treatment can determine if they have the ability to understand the charges against them.

There are more than 400 people like Handley in Missouri jails — people whom a judge has ruled need treatment but are instead warehoused in facilities that don’t have the capacity to take care of them properly. The situation was so bad in Illinois that several sheriffs in 2022 sued the state over its failure to open up mental health beds.

In a recent report on conditions at the Justice Center in St. Louis, the interim director, Doug Burris, pointed to the lack of mental heath treatment as one of the causes of unrest in that jail.

“One area of particular concern is how the Corrections Department has become the last resort for housing people with mental illness,” Burris wrote in his report. “Many of these people would be better served with proper community mental health services, which the state of Missouri sorely lacks. When these people are released without a proper safety net of services to assist them, a significant number will experience a revolving door back to the jail.”

According to the Department of Mental Health, there are 31 people in the city’s jail who are awaiting a transfer to a mental health bed that may or may not ever materialize. In St. Louis County, where Handley is being held, the number is 34. In smaller jails in the counties surrounding St. Louis, there are 28 such patients. For the past several years, the numbers have been rising.

So why are they stuck in jail? That’s the question Handley’s attorneys, Rick Sindel and Jordan Wellinghoff, asked St. Louis County Circuit Judge Nancy Watkins McLaughlin last year. They begged her to lower Handley’s bond so he could return home with his father and get treatment with a therapist he had previously seen.

The attorneys, much to McLaughlin’s dismay, compared Handley’s case to that of Matthew McCulloch, the former county police officer and son of the former county prosecutor, who was charged with the same offense but in significantly worse circumstances.

Last Halloween, McCulloch fired a gun in a crowded school parking lot in Kirkwood during a trunk-or-treat celebration. He was tackled by parents. McCulloch, who is white, was released on bond so he could seek mental health treatment at home. Handley, who is Black and never fired a gun, was not.

“The difference in severity between Handley’s case and McCulloch’s case is clear,” the attorneys argued before McLaughlin. “The disparate treatment between these two defendants is also clear.”

The judge didn’t budge. In the meantime, McCulloch, who had a different judge, has pleaded guilty in his case. He’s still free, awaiting sentencing next month. Handley, mostly unable to understand what is going on in his case, is behind bars.

That’s why Sindel was sitting next to Handley’s father on Tuesday in the county’s probate court. The attorney had filed a motion to have Handley’s father become his guardian, in a last-ditch attempt to get the younger Handley out of jail. The Department of Mental Health didn’t oppose the motion. It was granted on Wednesday.

Now, Sindel and Wellinghoff are waiting for a new judge to be appointed in Handley’s criminal case — McLaughlin retired — so they can try to get his charge dropped and so he can go home with his father. On Thursday, they filed a motion to dismiss the case.

As they await a ruling, Handley waits in the worst possible place, like 400 other people across Missouri.

“My worry is this will set him back,” Sindel told me. “We’ve tried everything we can think of to get him out of jail. There is no valid reason to keep him there.”

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