Caught in The System of Incompetency

My name is Danielle Bennett. My son, Elliot Michael Bennett, has been living in a system that punishes mental illness, a no-fault brain disorder, and delays justice until a person breaks. We live in Arizona. 

Elliot was never a troublemaker. He was the kid who would give you the shirt off his back. He worked hard, loved his family, had big goals, and worked for what he had. He poured his heart into motocross and earned a Kawasaki sponsorship. We were with him every weekend, watching him chase something positive and real.

Then our family went through a devastating stretch of loss and trauma, and Elliot’s brain began to unravel. He escalated into psychosis, fear, confusion, and paranoia that made him vulnerable and in need of protection. The wrong people took advantage of his vulnerability when he needed protection and treatment, not isolation. What has happened since has been crushing.

Elliot, now 22 years old, has been held in pretrial detention since March 2023 in Maricopa County, Arizona—without a trial. The case has repeatedly encountered court proceedings intended to determine whether he’s competent to stand trial. This “competency cycling” has left him stuck in limbo. 

Because of his symptoms of mental illness, Elliot has often been unable to meaningfully assist in his own defense. Instead of the process moving forward with appropriate care and timely court action, he has remained in custody as his condition slowly deteriorated. It’s as though the system has allowed him to decline over time rather than ensured consistent treatment and due process.

Communication has been deeply inconsistent. There have been periods when we could not reliably hear from him. Basic stability like access to services or consistent procedures seemed to disappear without explanation. It felt confusing, opaque, and dehumanizing to us from the outside.

On top of that, there have been serious discrepancies and concerns about how this case has been handled. We lost trust in the courts. Shifting narratives, missing clarity, and a lack of transparency left us asking, “How can a person defend themselves when the process itself becomes the punishment?”

I am not asking anyone to decide guilt or innocence online. I am asking people to see what happens when a young person in a mental-health crisis is swallowed by delays, confinement, and a revolving door of competency proceedings—while time passes, hope fades, and a family watches their child slip away.

We are still fighting for basic due process, meaningful mental health treatment, and a timeline that makes sense. We are trying to get the right help in place and preserve records that show the true timeline of court events, custody movements, and documentation. Why? None of this should be happening in silence.
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I’m sharing Elliot’s story because families like ours need to be heard. We plead for accountability, humane treatment, and a system that doesn’t abandon people in psychosis behind concrete walls while the clock runs out. Elliot is a human being. He is loved. And he deserves care, due process, and a real chance to be heard.

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Since March 2023, Elliot has remained in pretrial detention in Maricopa County at an estimated individual taxpayer cost of $140–$150 per day—totaling roughly $150,000 or more—without a trial and consistent, meaningful treatment. When treatment is delayed and people are warehoused instead of helped, the cost is not only human, it is financial. Taxpayers are funding prolonged pretrial detention, repeated competency proceedings, court continuances, emergency interventions, and system inefficiencies that serve no one while a person in crisis deteriorates. It is far more expensive to confine someone in psychosis than to provide timely, effective treatment in the community or hospital. Every day, Elliot remains trapped in a cycle of wasted public dollars, lost time, and irreversible harm. Neglect costs—and we are all paying for it.