In May 2023, Jeremiah Gideon was charged with assaulting a detention officer while in custody at the Cascade County Adult Detention center, according to court records.

During the course of that case, District Court Judge Dave Grubich ordered that Gideon be sent to the Montana State Hospital in Warm Springs for a mental health evaluation and to be made fit for trial.

He was sent to the hospital at the end of 2023 and during that time, hospital officials sent a letter to Grubich stating that Gideon was violent and recommended that he be civilly committed because he wouldn’t be fit for trial.

Gideon was in the state hospital until he was transferred to the civil side of the facility following an Aug. 9, 2024 civil involuntary commitment order from District Court Judge John Kutzman, according to state officials. The order was a commitment for up to 90 days and allowed for involuntary medication.

Because he was civilly committed, the court dismissed those criminal charges afterward.

On Sept. 25, 2024, the state hospital released Gideon.

On Oct. 2, 2024, he was arrested and charged with assault in Great Falls.

On Oct. 9, 2024, he hit a Montana Credit Union employee with a vehicle, severely injuring him, at their 9th Street South location.

County attorney: attempted homicide suspect released from state hospital without notice [2024]

Gideon appeared in court that day on felony charges of attempted deliberate homicide and assault on a peace office and District Court Judge Elizabeth Best deemed him unfit for proceedings and issued an order that he be sent to the state hospital for an evaluation within 90 days.

Today, Jan. 8, 2025 is the 90th day and Gideon has not been admitted to the state hospital.

State officials from the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services told Judge John Kutman during a Jan. 7 hearing that the state hospital was full and they didn’t know when they would be able to admit Gideon, who is 65th on the waiting list.

Gideon’s defense attorney, Michael Kuntz, said that under state law, if Gideon can’t be made fit within that 90 day window, he has to move that the case be dismissed and Gideon be released.

The Cascade County Attorney’s Office argued that Gideon is a danger to the community and should not be released and that the state’s inability to provide required services makes it impossible for their office to prosecute Gideon, and defendants similarly situated.

During the Jan. 7 hearing in Great Falls, Kutzman gave an overview of Gideon’s timeline with the court beginning with Grubich’s order sending him to Warm Springs.

“He was sufficiently violent while he was over there,” Kutzman said and that caused the state hospital officials to send a letter recommending that Gideon be civilly committed, an option the county pursued and after a trial, Kutzman issued an order on Aug. 9, 2024 committing Gideon to the state hospital for up to 90 days.

The state hospital released Gideon within five weeks and has not given any information, despite requests from the county attorney and district court judges, as to why he was released and what treatment, if any, he received during that commitment, according to the county attorney’s office.

Kuntz, Gideon’s defense attorney, said that “he had not changed,” is “beyond rationality,” and “incapable of rational conversation.”

Kuntz said that during the civil commitment trial in August, the state testified that long-term medication was needed as a baseline to restore Gideon’s mental health, but he had refused medication.

As Kuntz was speaking, Gideon interrupted saying he was a Navy SEAL.

Gideon was not a SEAL but did serve in the Navy as a radioman, according to Cascade County Attorney Josh Racki.

Kuntz argued that in a previous case, Kutzman had written in an order that if a defendant could not be made fit within 90 days, it had to be dismissed.

“He is not going to be made fit by tomorrow,” Kuntz said.

“So you’re going to ask that he be released and he could kill somebody? [The other defendant] didn’t try to kill anybody,” Kutzman said.

Man charged for intentionally running over bank employee [2024]

Kuntz said the law doesn’t specify degrees of crimes or exceptions to the 90 days regarding mental health fitness.

Ryan Ball, a Cascade County attorney prosecuting Gideon’s case, said he had asked for the Jan. 7 status hearing to compel a representative from DPHHS to participate so the prosecution and the court could demand answers as to “why he’s still here.”

Gideon interrupted, asking Ball, “why are you still here” and that he was tired of Ball.

Ball continued speaking and said, “it’s very clear that he’s a danger to the this community,” as Gideon became more agitated and saying that he fired Ball.

Kuntz, Gideon’s attorney, asked that Gideon be removed from the courtroom because he had concerns for the safety of the courtroom as it’s hard to calm Gideon down when he gets stirred up.

Kutzman said that was the second time that afternoon Gideon had to be removed from the courtroom and the first was when he was cursing loudly and being disorderly because he didn’t want to sit with the other inmates who were there for hearings.

Several correctional officers removed Gideon from the courtroom.

“He can’t regulate his behavior,” Kutzman said, “and you’re getting ready to demand that he be released.”

Kuntz said that he was not, but would instead ask for another civil commitment, to which Kutzman asked what good that was since the last time he ordered him to Warm Springs, the state released him and he tried to kill someone.

“I think there’s going to be an incident with police and violence,” Kuntz said.

Gideon has been held in the Cascade County Adult Detention Center since his Oct. 9 arrest, but there’s no other facility that will take him, the jail can’t involuntarily medicate him, and he’s a danger to correctional officers, according to Cascade County Attorney Josh Racki.

“This is a legislative problem,” Kuntz said, that the state hospital doesn’t have resources so they cut Gideon loose.

“We don’t hold mentally insane or ill people in jail as a prophylactic,” Kuntz said.

He said the Legislature created the problem and left local law enforcement and courts to figure it out.

“Yes there could be some bad outcomes and that sucks,” Kuntz said, but it might prompt the lawmakers to take action since the courts can only follow existing laws.

“If there’s any case to have a longer period, this is it,” Ball said.

Kutzman said the defense is suggesting another involuntary commitment, but the remedy for that is 90 days at Warm Springs and the state let him out in five weeks.

“What we need is for him to be locked up some place where he can’t get out and be a threat to people,” Kutzman said and asked if there was a longer treatment option.

Racki said there is, but that also requires a mental health evaluation from the state hospital.

Racki said the state has reasons for their challenges and he understands they’re also in a bind, “but in the end, we’re suffering the consequences. We need a solution to stop being getting hurt.”

Kuntz said he agreed with Racki that the “community, the state paying the price for this,” but the law doesn’t allow an exception for just Gideon.

Lindsey Borchert, the forensic administrator and treatment manager at the state hospital, said that she received the court order for Gideon on Oct. 10, at which time, there were about 70 people ahead of him on the waitlist.

Borchert testified that the state had requested a hearing on involuntarily medicating Gideon in the spring of 2024 that was not scheduled, but county officials said they’d already discussed the need to civilly commit Gideon and had started down that track instead.

Ball objected to Borchert’s testimony, but Kutzman said he’d allow it and “they’re saying it’s all our fault.”

Borchert said that Gideon could have been made fit in the 2023 criminal case with involuntary medication and go to trial.

She said that the county also hadn’t applied through the DPHHS system for funding for a mental health evaluation within the community, but that she reached out to two area providers who did not accept the case.

Borchert said using a community provider would expedite the evaluation.

She said during the time he was in the state hospital from late 2023 until he was transferred to the civil side in August 2024 and “was not mentally fit during that time.”

Asked what she thought an evaluation would find, Borchert said she’s not a clinician, but would expect an evaluation to find him unfit to proceed with criminal proceedings at this time.

Racki asked whether an evaluation would get Gideon a treatment bed at Warm Springs faster.

“No it would not,” Borchert said.

Kuntz, Gideon’s attorney, asked what medication restored Gideon’s fitness for release from his civil commitment in September 2024.

Borchert said she didn’t work on the civil side so she didn’t know without pulling up his file, which she had not done, but believed he was given an injectable.

She said it’s a requirement to have a discharge plan for anyone leaving the state hospital, but she hadn’t gone looking for that report and couldn’t answer questions as to how long injectable antipsychotic medications last.

Kuntz said that the state can’t testify that medication would help and then say they’re not able to answer questions about medication.

Kutzman pulled up his Aug. 9 order on the shared Zoom screen and read the sections of his order to Borchert that included he was committed there for up to 90 days, would take any prescribed medication and that the facility could administer medication involuntarily.

He asked her if they had his order to hold and medicate, to which Borchert said she didn’t know since she doesn’t work on the civil side of the facility.

Kutzman said that they had the order so there was no impediment to involuntarily medicating Gideon at the facility.

“No there was not,” Borchert said.

Michael Douherty, a DPHHS attorney, said that he believed the evaluation period could be extended in this case to get a mental health evaluation and fitness report.

Racki said the evaluation wouldn’t make a difference getting Gideon into the state hospital for treatment and “we understand the hospital is full…but in the end, people are suffering. The solution can’t be to harm to citizens of Cascade County.”

Kutzman, visibly frustrated by the situation, said that in a case a few years ago, he had a female defendant on the wait list and held DPHHS in contempt for failing to admit her, which the Montana Supreme Court overruled.

He said he’d issued an order requiring DPHHS to file a report with the governor and Legislature detailing the reality of the situation, but the Montana Supreme Court said he couldn’t do that.

Judge John Parker has issued an order requiring the DPHHS director to appear to testify in Gideon’s current criminal case in which he hit a man with his vehicle, and that issue is currently before the Montana Supreme Court.

Kutzman denied Kuntz’ oral motion to dismiss the case and told him to file a written motion, to which the county attorney’s office and DPHHS will have time to respond.

Cascade County Attorney Josh Racki told The Electric that it’s a funny legal situation because technically, he and his office represent the state in prosecutions, but he and the state hospital are not in agreement in this case so he won’t file responses on their behalf.

He said he believes there’s an exception in that the court has to hold a hearing within 90 days and if the court determines there’s no way a defendant can be found mentally fit, the case must be dismissed and the county would file a civil commitment petition.

Racki said that there has to be an affirmative finding that Gideon can’t be fit for court but that can’t happen without an evaluation, but at some point, it becomes a constitutional issue of holding someone without moving through the judicial system.

Racki said the coordination between the counties, courts and the state hospital used to work, but over the last two to three years, “it just fell apart.”

He said defendants talk about it amongst themselves in jail, and during recorded jail phone calls, about how they want to be considered unfit so they’re ordered to Warm Springs and if the state can’t see them within 90 days, they’re case gets dismissed.

During Gideon’s 2023 criminal case, the state hospital officials testified that Gideon was violent and there was discussion of whether he could be restrained in court, Racki said.

In another case, District Court Judge John Parker issued an order in December requiring the DPHHS director to appear in court to testify as to the backlog at the state hospital and why the defendant in that case, Gregory LaPlant, had not been admitted to the state hospital for a mental health evaluation within the court ordered 90 days.

DPHHS filed a petition for a writ of supervisory control with the Montana Supreme Court arguing that the director has no knowledge of LaPlant’s case and that Parker’s order is a violation of separation of powers in ordering someone from the executive branch to appear in court.

The state court has issued a order delaying any action in LaPlant’s case until it can review the DPHHS petition and make a decision.

The Cascade County Attorney’s Office submitted a response saying that since Parker has since issued an order allowing a different representative from DPHHS to appear, though in violation of the Montana Supreme Court’s delay order, the separation of powers argument was now moot.

In a Jan. 6 response, Parker wrote that the Montana Supreme Court should deny DPHHS’ request and allow the director, or an alternate witness, to appear in court to testify “regarding the chronic wait list at the Montana State Hospital as it affects Defendant Gregory LaPlant. Although the Constitutional separation of powers is a bedrock legal principle in our democracy which the trial court bears firmly in mind, the record in this case and in dozens of similar cases across the state makes it clear why the director’s testimony may be necessary in this matter. The specific
facts of Defendant LaPlant’s case-together with the trial court’s judicial knowledge of similar concerns in a disturbing number of companion cases require that the director may need to provide testimony” under state law, rules of evidence and a number of Montana Supreme Court cases.

Parker wrote that, in the LaPlant case, DPHHS testimony from the director, or alternatively the director of the state hospital, “might conclusively establish whether Defendant LaPlant’s case must be dismissed because of the well known, staggering wait list at the Montana State Hospital as noted in the trial court record,” or, “on the other hand, testimony from Director Brereton might establish that at long last, the department has undertaken measures to address the chronic backlog, such as entering into mid-term contracts with additional clinical providers, obtaining more clinically appropriate physical space where defendants can be transported and assessed, developing community-based options where Defendant LaPlant’s evaluation can take place, and so on. Testimony of this kind would certainly be of consequence to the determination of Defendant LaPlant’s case. Without Director Brereton’s testimony, the trial court can only speculate about what progress might have occurred, which would clearly be an abuse of discretion.”

The Cascade County Attorney’s Office also responded in the case and while they believe the separation of powers argument from DPHHS was moot since Parker had issued an order allowing an alternate witness, but also since the order was issued after the state court had stayed the case, the matter should be sent back to Parker to “further explore and take testimony on what the department is doing to remedy the critical issues at the hospital.”

LaPlant was charged in April 2024 for aggravated assault at the Cascade County jail where he was being held on charges from another case, in which he was charged in the fall of 2023 with criminal possession of dangerous drugs, obstructing a peace officer and failure to have proper lights on a bicycle used at night.

In the 2023 case, LaPlant’s defense attorney notified the court that LaPlant was mentally ill and he appeared to struggle with the rights advisory but said he understood during a hearing, according to the county attorney’s response. His defense attorney requested a mental health evaluation concerning LaPlant’s fitness to proceed and Parker ordered a mental health evaluation in late 2023.

In April 2024, LaPlant was charged with aggravated assault while he was in jail for a bond revocation in the underlying case and LaPlant knocked out his cellmate’s front tooth, according to court documents.

LaPlant’s attorney obtained a psychological evaluation, as did the state, and both found LaPlant unfit to proceed and recommended restorative fitness treatment. Parker found LaPlant unfit to proceed and on Aug. 5, 2024, ordered that LaPlant be admitted to the state hospital for treatment, according to the county’s response.

LaPlant remains housed in the county jail and he was 39th on the waiting list for the state hospital at the time of Parker’s order. He’s been in jail for more than 90 days without admission to the state hospital and DPHHS hasn’t advised an admission date or provided any restorative treatment, according to the county’s response.

LaPlant’s attorney has moved to dismiss the case based on DPHHS’ failure to provide a report on his fitness to proceed as required by state law, according to the county attorney’s office.

The county attorney’s office said that Parker “issued a lawful order concerning the mental health and fitness of LaPlant and he continued to wait for admission to the Hospital,” and the office “needs to enlighten this court of all the pending cases where mental health in Cascade County remains an issue considering the number of cases which have been dismissed by the judges due to the delays in admission at the hospital.”

In their response, the Cascade County office listed multiple cases that have been delayed or dismissed due to delays in admission at the state hospital:

• State of Montana v. Logan Severson, found unfit to proceed Sept. 18, 2024 and awaiting admission to the hospital. Delay is 104 days as of Jan. 3.
• State of Montana v. Justania Javene Windyboy, found unfit to proceed June 11, 2024. Delay is 203 days as of Jan. 3.
• State of Montana v. Gregory Andrew LaPlant, found unfit to proceed June 6, 2024. Delay is 208 days as of Jan. 3.
• State of Montana v. Michael Joseph George, found unfit to proceed July 30, 2024. Delay is 154 days as of Jan. 3.
• State of Montana v. Gregory Andrew LaPlant, found unfit Aug. 5, 2024. Delay is 148 days as of Jan. 3.
• State of Montana v. Jeremiah Gideon, found unfit Oct. 10, 2024. Delay is 87 days as of Jan. 3.

The county attorney’s office listed the cases in its response that have been dismissed due to delays in admission to the state hospital:

• State of Montana v. Shyla Hanway, found unfit on Oct. 20, 2020, based upon a diagnosis of disorganized schizophrenia and the district court dismissed the proceedings with prejudice on March 9, 2021. The delay in the case was 140 days.
• State of Montana v. Shyla Hanway, found unfit on Aug. 31, 2021 and dismissed without prejudice on Nov. 24, 2021. Despite being transferred to the Montana State Hospital, Hanway was not made fit within a reasonable period of time. The delay was 85 days.
• State of Montana v. Shyla Hanway, found unfit on April 13, 2022 and dismissed with prejudice on Dec. 30, 2022. The delay was 251 days.
• State of Montana v. Daniel Joseph Hartzell, found unfit on June 22, 2021 and dismissed without prejudice on Sept. 28, 2021. The delay was 98 days.
• State of Montana v. Timothy Jay Fowler, Jr., found unfit on Aug. 31, 2023, the transport was not done prior to a fitness hearing on Nov. 15, 2023, and Fowler remained 20 on the list. Dismissed in April 2024. Delay in transport to MSH was at least 76 days.
• State of Montana v. Paula Yvette Gopher-Arocha. Gopher-Arocha allegedly violated probation and a petition to revoke was filed.  Gopher-Arocha filed a motion to find her unfit and the court heard testimony from two different evaluators. The court found her unfit and ordered her transported to the state hospital on Sept. 11, 2024. The district court dismissed the proceedings on Dec. 10, 2024, with prejudice based upon the delay in transporting her, finding that the delay violated her rights. She was transported to the state hospital on Nov. 19, 2024 on a Toole County case a week after an unfit finding in that court. The delay in transport in the Cascade County case was 89 days.
• State of Montana v. Christopher Rolfs, found unfit and ordered transport to the state hospital on May 17, 2024. There was a possibility of him being made fit within a reasonable period of time, but he was not transported to MSH as ordered and the district court dismissed the proceedings on Aug. 15, 2024. The delay was 90 days without Rolfs being transported.

“Parker has attempted in other proceedings to obtain a commitment from [DPHHS} to remedy the ongoing crisis at the Montana State Hospital, without success as evidenced by these proceedings,” the county wrote in its response to the Montana Supreme Court.