STAND. COM. REP. NO. 4

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.B. No. 145

       S.D. 1

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Twenty-Ninth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2017

State of Hawaii

Sir:

     Your Committee on Commerce, Consumer Protection, and Health, to which was referred S.B. No. 145 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO EXAMINATIONS OF FITNESS TO PROCEED,"

begs leave to report as follows:

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to:

     (1)  Ensure that transfers of defendants to hospitals for evaluation and treatment are due to the need for acute hospital level psychiatric treatment for mental illness; and

     (2)  Make permanent the statutory change repealing the requirement that one of the three qualified examiners providing forensic evaluations to determine a defendant's fitness to proceed in a felony case has to be appointed from within the Department of Health.

     Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Health.  Your Committee received comments on this measure from the Hawaii Disability Rights Center.

     Your Committee finds that it is important to pursue initiatives that promote the safe, effective, and efficient delivery of mental health supports and forensic evaluations.  Currently, no clearly defined criteria exist for determining whether or not it is necessary to transfer a defendant to a hospital to receive a pretrial forensic evaluation.  Instead, the court has discretion in the matter, but there is no mental health professional appointed at that juncture in the court proceedings to assess the level of care a defendant might need.  This measure clarifies existing law to ensure that transfers to state facilities for evaluation and treatment occur when there is a need for acute hospital level psychiatric treatment for mental illness.

     Your Committee further finds that forensic examinations should be timely and efficient.  During the Regular Session of 2016, the Legislature acknowledged personnel shortages within the Department of Health and enacted Act 231, Session Laws of Hawaii 2016, which gives the Department flexibility in assigning work to forensic examiners from outside the Department until June 30, 2018.  Your Committee believes that this deadline gives the Department sufficient time to resolve its staffing deficits and that the flexibility granted to the Department should be temporary, as originally intended.

     Your Committee has amended this measure by:

     (1)  Inserting language to include detainees located in jail correctional facilities who are in need of acute psychiatric treatment for mental illness by allowing these detainees to be transferred to state facilities per agreements entered into between the Department of Health and the Department of Public Safety;

     (2)  Deleting section 2, thereby retaining the language that reinstates mandatory participation by examiners from within the Department of Health in forensic examinations beginning July 1, 2018;

     (3)  Inserting an effective date of July 1, 2050, to encourage further discussion; and

     (4)  Making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of clarity and consistency.

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Commerce, Consumer Protection, and Health that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 145, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 145, S.D. 1, and be referred to your Committee on Judiciary and Labor.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Commerce, Consumer Protection, and Health,

________________________________

ROSALYN H. BAKER, Chair