Her baby, Bryanna, dead from a methadone overdose, Vernice Harris sits at the Baltimore City jail suffering from a worsening mental illness and wondering when she can see her child.

“She’s in a cell by herself,” says her attorney, Maureen Rowland. “She’s reliving the incident. She’s wishing to see the baby, but she can’t.”

Despite a judge’s order in April, Harris’ mental illness is not being properly treated, Rowland said, because health care providers can’t find an open bed for her at an appropriate facility.

On Friday, Baltimore City Circuit Judge Timothy Doory signed an order for a state evaluation of Harris that he hopes will speed up the process, which so far has gotten nowhere.

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“We have not been successful yet,” Doory said. “Unfortunately, nothing in the system moves instantaneously.”

Doory and attorneys in the case have been trying to get Harris treatment for her drug and mental health problems since April, when Harris, 31, pleaded guilty to a charge of voluntary manslaughter in the June 5, 2007, death of her 2-year-old daughter, Bryanna. Doory sentenced Harris to five years of probation.

Police say Harris fed methadone to the child “to keep her quiet,” though Hariss’ attorney and friends dispute she did so.

On Friday, Doory instructed Harris to be cooperative with anyone who attempts to interview her in the coming weeks. A report on Harris’ condition is due Aug. 13.

“I’ve been very cooperative,” Harris told the judge.

Rowland said social workers are trying to place Harris in the Gauudeniza drug rehabilitation center but are waiting for open beds.

Prosecutor Julie Drake said a “lack of appropriate funding” is causing the hold-up in Harris’ placement. In the meantime, she must remain in jail.

“We don’t think she should be out on the street,” Drake said.

Harris was charged Dec. 22 with the first-degree murder of her daughter after a medical examiner’s report showed “a substantial amount” of methadone coupled with blunt-force trauma to the abdomen caused the child’s death.

Witnesses supplied taped statements to police that Vernice Harris would beat Bryanna Ashley Harris “all the time for no reason other than asking for food or to be held,” homicide Detective Irvin Bradley wrote in his report. “They also stated that when Vernice Harris had her drug-addicted friends over, she didn’t have time for the child.”

Medics rushed Bryanna from the 1700 block of East 25th Street at 3:30 a.m. on June 5, 2007, after Harris called 911 when she found her daughter wasn’t breathing.

Investigators found the home “in disarray,” with the dwelling infested with roaches, police said.

After Bryanna’s death, Gov. Martin O’Malley ordered an investigation into how Child Protective Services allowed Harris, a mother with a record of substantiated cases of neglect and child abuse, to keep a 2-year-old baby in a roach-infested home.

O’Malley called the case “tragic.”

An investigative report into the Department of Social Services showed several failings in how the agency handled Harris’ case.

According to the state inspector general’s report, those problems included:

• The family had at least 10 separate case workers.

• Harris waited for more than four weeks to get into treatment for drug abuse and mental health issues. During this time, she continued to use drugs and put her young child at risk, the agency wrote.

• A month before Bryanna’s death, Harris tried to visit her foster care worker, but was told she was no longer eligible for foster care services.

• There was a lack of communication with external agencies, such as the Baltimore City Health Department and the Baltimore Police Department.

According to police, Child Protective Services has charged Harris three times with neglect -- in 2002, 2005 and most recently in April 2007 – and once with child abuse, in 2000.

lbroadwater@baltimoreexaminer.com