STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2505

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.B. No. 3070

       S.D. 1

Honorable Colleen Hanabusa

President of the Senate

Twenty-Fourth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2008

State of Hawaii

Madam:

     Your Committee on Health, to which was referred S.B. No. 3070 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO CONDITIONAL RELEASE,"

begs leave to report as follows:

     The purpose of this measure is to clarify court procedures on the seventy-two hour hold and extended hold process as it relates to the conditional release of persons originally committed for mental health reasons.

     Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Health and the Hawaii Government Employees Association.

     This measure is an outgrowth of Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 117, H.D.1, 2006, entitled, "Requesting the Governor to Convene a Task Force to Evaluate and Recommend Possible Procedural, Statutory, and Public Policy Changes to Minimize the Census at Hawaii State Hospital and Promote Community-Based Health Services for Forensic Patients".  This measure allows the court to conduct a hearing, at or before the expiration of the seventy-two hour period of hospitalization, to determine whether the person would benefit from further hospitalization which may render a revocation of a conditional release unnecessary.  The court, if satisfied at the hearing, may order further temporary hospitalization for a period not to exceed ninety days, subject to extension as appropriate, but not in any event to exceed one year.  At any time within that one year period, the court may determine that another hearing should be conducted to determine whether the conditions of release should be modified or ordered to the custody of the Director of Health to be subject to further proceedings under law for conditional release.

     This measure is intended to make explicit in statute the distinction between a conditional release and a revocation of a conditional release for a period of seventy-two hours.  Testimony indicated that this measure will result in decreasing the utilization of bed space at the Hawaii State Hospital by limiting the length of time of a committal pursuant to a conditional release revocation.

     Your Committee has amended this measure by making technical, nonsubstantive amendments.

     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. 3070, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 3070, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Judiciary and Labor.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Health,

____________________________

DAVID Y. IGE, Chair