STAND. COM. REP. NO. 1827

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE: H.B. No. 950

H.D. 1

S.D. 1

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Thirty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2023

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Judiciary, to which was referred H.B. No. 950, H.D. 1, S.D. 1, entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO ASSISTED COMMUNITY TREATMENT ORDERS,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose and intent of this measure is to:

(1) Extend the duration of assisted community treatment and continued assisted community treatment orders that a family court may issue; and

(2) Reduce the time period that the family court must find the relevant criteria are likely to continue for orders of continued assisted community treatment.

Your Committee received comments on this measure from the Department of Health.

Your Committee finds that for persons suffering from severe mental illness who meet the criteria for assisted community treatment, their period of appropriate supervision and treatment often exceeds the current one-year limit, requiring the parties to come back into court seeking another one-year period of treatment. This measure will obviate the need for instituting new court proceedings so soon, while retaining protections already in the assisted community treatment law for discharging patients from assisted community treatment orders where the criteria for the order no longer exist and will give people with serious mental illness the option, when needed, for longer court-mandated treatment.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Judiciary that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 950, H.D. 1, S.D. 1, and recommends that it pass Third Reading.

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

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KARL RHOADS, Chair