The state will challenge a ruling by a federal judge mandating that mentally ill defendants receive a competency examination within a week of a court order.

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The state plans to tell a federal appeals court that a ruling requiring competency evaluations for mentally ill defendants within seven days of a judge’s order is unreasonable and should be thrown out.

But lawyers representing those defendants say the federal judge’s ruling stating that jailing those defendants for longer than a week violates their constitutional rights should be upheld.

Both sides are to argue their positions to a 9th U.S. Court of Appeals panel Monday in Seattle.

Anita Khandelwal, one of the lawyers representing mentally ill defendants in the federal case against the state Department of Social and Health Services, said they’re disappointed the state chose to appeal the April ruling.

“However, we look forward to the Ninth Circuit review so that individuals will finally be able to predict how long the state can keep them incarcerated in jail while waiting for a competency evaluation,” she said. “We want to ensure that individuals are not subjected to unjustified detention.”

The original federal lawsuit filed in 2014 was brought because many mentally ill defendants waited weeks or months in jails for a competency evaluation. If found incompetent to stand trial, they had to wait for months to be moved into a psychiatric hospital to receive treatment to have competency restored.

After a hearing, U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman said the state was violating the constitutional rights of some of its most vulnerable citizens.

“Our jails are not suitable places for the mentally ill to be warehoused while they wait for services,” Pechman said in a written order. “Jails are not hospitals.”

The state appealed a part of Pechman’s ruling that set a seven-day deadline for competency evaluations. The state did not object to a deadline for competence-restoration treatment.