Black Man locked up 40 years in D.C. mental hospital for $20 necklace theft

Washtimes

Four decades ago, police charged him with stealing a $20 necklace, but Mr. Frye was found not competent to stand trial. If he’d been found guilty, he would’ve faced a fine or perhaps a short jail sentence. Instead, he’s spent most of his life inside the District’s psychiatric hospital, St. Elizabeth’s, feeling frustrated with, and forgotten by, the very system charged with looking after his welfare.

It’s a case that raises tricky questions about fairness within the criminal justice system and life inside St. Elizabeth’s. Indeed, for years the court system simply lost track of him.

Through the D.C. public defender’s office, Mr. Frye sought unconditional release in 2008, but his motion was filed on the docket of a dead judge, where it remained until earlier this year — with no apology or explanation from court officials.

“You end up being caught up in the system in a way you wouldn’t have if you were just guilty. It’s a tragedy,” said Steve Salzburg, a law professor at George Washington University and former deputy assistant attorney general.

Mr. Frye, who spoke publicly about his case for the first time in a recent interview with The Washington Times, is entitled to petition a judge for his release once a year. But it took nearly six years for his 2008 motion to receive any attention.

Hospital officials insist they separately review his files on their own and that previous attempts at releasing him into the community have failed.

“Mr. Frye is receiving appropriate care,” D.C. Department of Behavioral Health chief of staff Phyllis Jones wrote in an email.

But elder brother William Frye said nobody should have to eke out their entire lives in a city psychiatric ward. While he doesn’t deny that Franklin suffers from mental illness, he believes life in the hospital itself has made him worse, that anybody would “go crazy” if they had to spend more than four decades inside St. Elizabeth’s.