Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2006

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Health, to which was referred S.B. No. 2683 entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to require that a copy of all court-ordered mental health examinations be provided to the chief of forensics of the adult mental health division of the department of health.

Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Health, the Hawaii Disability Rights Center, and one individual.

Your Committee finds that forensic examination process takes many months to complete. During this process, a pretrial defendant who may have a serious mental illness or disease will be held in state custody without appropriate mental health treatment.

Your Committee further finds that requiring that a copy of all court-ordered mental health examinations be provided to the Chief of Forensics will streamline and improve the process of examining mentally ill individuals.

Your Committee has amended this measure as suggested by the Department of Health by specifying that the examination and all supporting documents be provided to the Chief of Forensics at the end of the court proceeding.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Health that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2683, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2683, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs.