STAND. COM. REP. NO. 3499

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    H.B. No. 2559

       H.D. 1

       S.D. 2

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Twenty-Eighth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2016

State of Hawaii

Sir:

     Your Committees on Ways and Means and Judiciary and Labor, to which was referred H.B. No. 2559, H.D. 1, S.D. 1, entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO MENTAL HEALTH,"

beg leave to report as follows:

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to promote assisted community treatment as an alternative to involuntary hospitalization.

Specifically, this measure:

     (1)  Defines "imminently dangerous to self or others";

(2)  Repeals the authority of law enforcement officers to take a person subject to an assisted community treatment order into custody and transport them to a designated mental health program without a court order;

(3)  Requires a judge to issue an order for a law enforcement officer to take a person subject to an assisted community treatment order into custody and deliver them to a designated mental health program;

(4)  Changes the maximum period of court-ordered assisted community treatment from one hundred eighty days to one year;

(5)  Amends the circumstances under which a person subject to an assisted community treatment order may be physically forced to take medication; and

(6)  Repeals the repeal and reenactment dates in Act 27 and Act 231, Session Laws of Hawaii 2015.

     Your Committees received written comments in support of this measure from one individual.

     Your Committees received written comments in opposition to this measure from the Hawaii Disability Rights Center and one individual.

     Your Committees received written comments on this measure from the American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii.

     Your Committees find that the State has a significant interest in protecting the civil liberties of and rehabilitating those who suffer from mental illness.  Assisted community treatment provides persons with mental illness a less restrictive means of treatment than hospitalization.  Your Committees also recognize that there are situations in which a person subject to assisted community treatment may require more restrictive treatment.  Your Committees believe that this measure balances the civil liberties of those with mental illness and the needs of the State to rehabilitate and protect. 

     Your Committees have amended this measure by clarifying the definition of "imminently dangerous to self or others" to mean "that, without intervention, the person will likely become dangerous to self or dangerous to others within the next ninety days".

     As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Ways and Means and Judiciary and Labor that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 2559, H.D. 1, S.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Third Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 2559, H.D. 1, S.D. 2.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Ways and Means and Judiciary and Labor,

________________________________ GILBERT S.C. KEITH-AGARAN, Chair

________________________________ JILL N. TOKUDA, Chair