Request By:
Ms. Barbara Henderson
Carlisle County Jailer
Courthouse
Bardwell, Kentucky 42023
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: George Geoghegan, III, Assistant Attorney General
In a letter to this office, you inquired whether it is the responsibility of the jailer to transport juveniles lodged in your jail to mental health facilities in Mayfield, Kentucky, and further, if it is your responsibility, who is to reimburse you for the expenses incurred in transporting the juvenile.
Under Kentucky Mental Health laws, there is no distinction between a transfer involving a juvenile and one involving an adult prisoner.
Under KRS 202A.100(2), the sheriff rather than the jailer is responsible for making temporary or permanent commitment to a mental health facility if the transfer is made pursuant to a court order. In other words, whenever a court has entered an order requiring a transfer of a prisoner to a mental health facility, your office is not required to make the transfer. Instead, the sheriff must do this. However, under KRS 202A.040(1), you are authorized to make a transfer of a person whom you believe to be mentally ill and who presents an immediate danger or immediate threat of danger to himself or others if not immediately restrained. In this situation, you may transfer the person as soon as possible to be examined by a physician and the physician may if he agrees lodge him in a hospital rather than your jail. This type of transfer is not made pursuant to a court order but upon probable cause to believe that a person is mentally ill and needs immediate help. Only in this situation are you authorized to make the transfer.
In answer to your second question, you are not entitled to receive payment for a transfer of a mental patient which is not authorized by law. Therefore, you cannot be reimbursed for a transfer made pursuant to a court order. On the other hand, you are in all probability entitled to reimbursement for a transfer of a mental patient made upon probable cause but in absence of a court order. Nevertheless, this is not a fee payable under KRS 64.150. You should present a voucher to the county treasurer for your expense in making the transfer and the fiscal court can authorize payment. While we believe that this is a legitimate expense of your office since you are authorized to make such a transfer under KRS 202A.040, it is possible that a court could rule otherwise. If a court held that the expense was not legitimate, you would not be entitled to reimbursement.