Report Title:

Pretrial Detainees; Hawaii Disability Rights Center

Description:

Establishes statutory deadlines for the mental examination of pretrial criminal defendants. Requires the judiciary to report to the 2005 legislature on the administration of forensic examinations and detail the number of days that pass between the order for mental evaluation and the court's ruling.

THE SENATE

S.B. NO.

2626

TWENTY-SECOND LEGISLATURE, 2004

 

STATE OF HAWAII

 


 

A BILL FOR AN ACT

 

Relating to pretrial detainees.

 

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF HAWAII:

SECTION 1. Section 704-404 of the Hawaii Revised Statutes provides for the mental examination of criminal defendants to determine penal responsibility. The legislature finds that the forensic examination process typically takes many months to complete. During this lengthy examination period, a pretrial defendant who may have a serious mental illness or disease will be held in state custody without appropriate mental health treatment. The denial of appropriate mental health treatment to persons with mental illness is contrary to public policy and state and federal statutes.

This conclusion is based, in part, on an analysis of a random sampling of ninety-one pretrial detainees conducted by the Hawaii disability rights center in December 2003. An average of seventy-eight days passed from date of arrest to the date when a forensic examination was requested. An average of eighteen additional days transpired before the court issued an order for evaluation. Thereafter, an average of eighty-four days passed before examiners’ reports were delivered and the court determined penal responsibility. The entire forensic evaluation process averages one hundred eighty days from motion to final adjudication. Thirty-five per cent of all pretrial detainees were ultimately found unfit to proceed and were subsequently provided mental health treatment by the State.

The purpose of this Act is to provide a time frame for the mental evaluation process to enable a pretrial detainee suspected of mental illness to be evaluated and receive appropriate medical treatment in a shorter period of time.

SECTION 2. Section 704-404, Hawaii Revised Statutes, is amended to read as follows:

1. By amending subsection (6) to read as follows:

"(6) The report of the examination, including any supporting documents, shall be due no later than forty-five days after the issuance of the court order to appoint examiners and suspend proceedings. All reports shall be filed in triplicate with the clerk of the court, who shall cause copies to be delivered to the prosecuting attorney and to counsel for the defendant."

2. By amending subsection (7) to read as follows:

"(7) Any examiner shall be permitted to make a separate explanation reasonably serving to clarify the examiner's diagnosis or opinion[.], to be done in accordance with the schedule set forth in subsection (6)."

SECTION 3. Section 704-405, Hawaii Revised Statutes, is amended to read as follows:

"§704-405 Determination of fitness to proceed. When the defendant's fitness to proceed is drawn in question, the issue shall be determined by the court. If neither the prosecuting attorney nor counsel for the defendant contests the finding of the report filed pursuant to section 704-404, the court may make the determination on the basis of such report. If the finding is contested, the court shall hold a hearing on the issue. When the report is received in evidence upon such hearing, the party who contests the finding thereof shall have the right to summon and to cross-examine the persons who joined in the report or assisted in the examination and to offer evidence upon the issue. In either an uncontested or contested situation, the court shall rule on the defendant's penal responsibility no later than fifteen days after the receipt of all examiner reports."

SECTION 4. The judiciary shall submit a report to the legislature no later than twenty days prior to the convening of the regular session of 2005 describing the administration of forensic examinations and detailing the number of days that passed between the order for mental evaluation and the court's ruling in 2004, both before and after the effective date of this Act.

SECTION 5. Statutory material to be repealed is bracketed and stricken. New statutory material is underscored.

SECTION 6. This Act shall take effect upon its approval.

INTRODUCED BY:

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