Gov OKs giving courts more info for committing mentally ill

AB140 allows a judge to take into consideration a series of events, rather than an isolated incident, in deciding whether to commit someone to a mental facility.

Debbie Hosselkus, deputy chief of the state Mental Hygiene-Mental Retardation Division, said the bill came out of an interim study committee chaired by Assemblywoman Vivian Freeman, D-Reno.

Proponents of AB140 include Rosetta Johnson of the Alliance for the Mentally Ill, who said after the hearing that the measure will help judges make good decisions based on past as well as current events involving people with mental illnesses.

Johnson added that the rights of the mentally ill are preserved because the past information can be used only if there's a concern about someone being "a clear and present danger."

But Brian Lahren of the Washoe Association for Retarded Citizens said there were concerns during an earlier Assembly hearing on the bill because of the possibility of testimony from non-professional types on someone's past behavior.

Guinn also signed SB115, which allows jails to charge prisoners for costs associated with alternatives to jail, such as work or house arrest programs.

Currently, if a person is convicted, sent to jail, and then released on a work program, the jail can recover from the convict $25 for processing the paperwork and $8 a day for administration costs.

But if the courts sentence convicts directly to the work program, the jail still administers the program, but can't charge convicts. They're technically not inmates.

Lawmakers were told that also created a problem with enforcement. If jail inmates fail to show up for a work program, deputies can pick them up and return them to jail the next day. But if convicts assigned to the work program by the courts fail to show up, they go back into the court system instead of jail.

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