Spring Grove

State health officials say an investigation has turned up no other defendants being mistakenly detained in state hospitals, as in the case of James Dunkes, the Baltimore County man who was locked up at Spring Grove Hospital Center for six years after charges against him were dropped. The review began last week after Spring Grove officials learned of Dunkes' plight. Dunkes, 45, was committed to Spring Grove in early 1996 after being declared mentally unfit to stand trial because of brain damage suffered in a 1982 auto accident.

James Dunkes, the Baltimore County man who has been locked up in a state hospital even though charges against him were dropped six years ago, learned yesterday that he is to leave the institution as soon as officials can place him in a program designed to help people with severe brain injuries. Dunkes, 46, now resides at Spring Grove Hospital Center in Catonsville "on an informal voluntary basis for the sole purpose of eligibility to the Traumatic Brain Injury Waiver Program," states an order signed yesterday by Baltimore County Circuit Judge J. Norris Byrnes.

JAMES DUNKES' confinement in a state hospital probably should have ended when a judge dismissed minor theft charges against him in 1998. But it didn't. Mr. Dunkes, who had been found incompetent to stand trial because of a brain injury, remains at Spring Grove Hospital Center six years later. The hospital and his public defender claim they were never notified that his charges had been dropped. Whether the Baltimore County District Court failed to send out the notice or it got lost in the mail or eaten by someone's dog doesn't resolve the question of Mr. Dunkes' confinement at Spring Grove.

"THERE was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's own safety ... was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane then he had to fly them." -- Joseph Heller, Catch-22 THE CASE of John Dunkes, a partially paralyzed Baltimore County man who in 1996 was arraigned on minor charges -- loitering, and stealing shoelaces and a cassette tape -- and who has been locked up in a state hospital ever since.

Attorneys for a Baltimore County man who has been locked up in a mental ward even though a series of minor charges against him were dropped six years ago have discovered that his monthly disability check of about $400 has been going into the state treasury, apparently to defray the cost of his forced confinement. Laura Cain of the Maryland Disability Law Center said they discovered that James Dunkes' Social Security disability checks have been going to the state for at least three years.

A 45-year-old partially paralyzed Baltimore County man, who was arrested in 1995 on a series of minor charges including the theft of a tape cassette and a pair of shoelaces, remains locked up in a state hospital even though the charges against him were dropped six years ago. When John Dunkes protested and insisted that he should be released from his locked ward because the charges no longer existed, state mental health officials concluded he was delusional....

Barring action by the General Assembly to prevent the closure of Crownsville Hospital Center, the state's top health officials said yesterday that they will shut down the psychiatric complex as early as July. "Ideally, I'd like to see it July 1," Health Secretary Nelson J. Sabatini said after a subcommittee hearing in the state Senate. Employee union officials said it was the firmest declaration they had heard from Sabatini and his top aides. He first proposed closing the 94-year-old hospital in October.

Barring action by the General Assembly to prevent the closure of Crownsville Hospital Center, the state's top health officials said yesterday that they will shut down the psychiatric complex as early as July. "Ideally, I'd like to see it July 1," Health Secretary Nelson J. Sabatini said after a subcommittee hearing in the state Senate. Employee union officials said it was the firmest declaration they had heard from Sabatini and his top aides. He first proposed closing the 94-year-old hospital in October.

The state's plan to close Crownsville Hospital Center met its first criticism yesterday, as employee union leaders and the mother of a patient at the 90-year-old mental health facility told legislators that a shutdown would put patients at risk and save much less than officials expect. "It creates holes in an already shredded safety net," said Paul J. Gentile, president of the American Federation of Teachers Healthcare-Maryland, which represents nurses and other employees at the hospital.

Gwendolyn K. Peterson, staffing coordinator of nursing services at Spring Grove Hospital Center in Catonsville, died of heart failure Monday at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. The Pikesville resident was 70. Born and raised Gwendolyn Kertley in West Baltimore, she was a 1952 graduate of Douglass High School. She was a 1957 graduate of the University of Maryland School of Nursing, and she earned a bachelor's degree in psychology from Antioch College in the late 1960s. During the 1960s and early 1970s, she was an alcoholism counselor at the old Provident Hospital.