Jacob Gonzalez

Jacob Gonzalez was arrested by the Shelby County Sheriff's Office on Thursday, Sept. 29, 2022, after a woman said he came out of the woods half-naked and grabbed her while she was walking on a path in Shelbyville. (Mugshot source: Shelby County Detention Center)

SHELBYVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – A defendant who has been waiting in jail more than a year for a mental health evaluation will finally get one after his attorney made an unheard of request that he be put in jail alongside his client until the state determined the man’s competency.

Attorney Matt Pippin filed a "novel" motion last week asking a judge to jail him alongside his client, Jacob Gonzalez, until Kentucky's state-run psychiatric center provided a competency evaluation, which he has been waiting for since September 2022.

Pippin was scheduled to ask Shelby District Court Judge Laura Witt on Thursday if he could be incarcerated on Nov. 9, with work release.

But the hearing was canceled after the state agreed to provide a competency evaluation for Gonzalez at Central State Hospital in Louisville, according to court records and officials. 

Pippin, who could not immediately be reached for comment, has said Gonzalez would have already served out his maximum possible sentence if he had been convicted of the charges against him.

KCPC is the only facility in the state that can conduct mental competency evaluations for people charged with a felony, the most serious crime. But Central State can do evaluations for people charged with misdemeanors, like Gonzalez.

Pippin acknowledged last week he was hoping for this outcome.

"If KCPC knows that I'm sitting there waiting on them too, then they may be able to make an accommodation (for Gonzalez)," he said. "I don't want to be incarcerated, but I don't want this on my conscience anymore. And I do think that there is a better chance of this being expedited ... if there is some attention paid to it in any way. I do hope it spurs KCPC to figure something out."

An official with the KCPC testified last year there was a statewide waiting list of more than 300 defendants with a wait time of a year or more — up from about eight weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic. The waiting list had been about 80 people before the pandemic.

The inaction has left hundreds of criminal cases on hold across the state, with some defendants jailed indefinitely and victims unsure when they will get any resolution.

While in custody, Gonzalez has been unable to receive medication or treatment, and Pippin wrote in a motion last week that he wanted to be placed in the same cell with Gonzalez "to make himself available to more aggressively address what has become an unconscionable circumstance for his client. Defense counsel requests the jail be ordered to house him in the same cell with his client."

"The point is to try to ease my client's suffering," Pippin said in an interview Friday. "He is stuck and alone, and it has gone on long enough without any solution that it's become a moral issue. ... I don't know how to fix it but I know how to make it a little better in the short term. And if I was there with him, I know that I could at least make him more comfortable."

Gonzalez was arrested last September and is facing charges of harassment, indecent exposure, fleeing or evading police and attempted sexual misconduct for allegedly attacking a woman in a park. 

The maximum sentence he could face is a year in jail, which he has already served, Pippin said. 

Pippin filed a motion for an evaluation at KCPC last September. The judge filed another motion in May. 

A Louisville judge received a similar outcome in August of last year when she threatened to hold KCPC officials in contempt of court for repeatedly failing to follow orders to evaluate defendants on their competency to stand trial.

Most of the defendants involved in the contempt motion were immediately given dates for evaluations and no one was held in contempt.

Officials have said employees aren't intentionally defying court orders. They claim there just isn't the necessary space and employees available.

To deal with the backlog, the psychiatric center has begun working with jails around the state to perform some evaluations through video conferences.

Earlier this year, Metro Department of Corrections Director Jerry Collins said the psychiatric center had begun working in Louisville and around the state to perform some evaluations through video conferences or sending psychiatrists to the facilities instead of waiting for space to open up at KCPC.

Local officials said the backlog has been greatly reduced in Louisville. A spokesperson for the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services, which oversees KCPC, previously said there has only been a 10% reduction on the waitlist statewide.

This story may be updated. 

Copyright 2023 WDRB Media. All Rights Reserved.