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SUBSTITUTE
SENATE BILL 5046
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Passed
Legislature - 1999 Regular Session
State of Washington 56th
Legislature 1999 Regular Session
By
Read first time 01/29/1999.
Revising
hearing procedures for defendants receiving mental health evaluations.
AN
ACT Relating to creating an additional hearing procedure when the court
disagrees with the mental health evaluation conducted by a professional person;
amending RCW 71.05.235; providing an effective date; and declaring an
emergency.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE
LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:
Sec.
1. RCW
71.05.235 and 1998 c 297 s 18 are each amended to read as follows:
(1)
If an individual is referred to a county designated mental health professional
under RCW 10.77.090(1)(d)(iii)(A), the county designated mental health
professional shall examine the individual within forty-eight hours. If the
county designated mental health professional determines it is not appropriate
to detain the individual or petition for a ninety-day less restrictive
alternative under RCW 71.05.230(4), that decision shall be immediately
presented to the superior court for hearing. The court shall hold a hearing to
consider the decision of the county designated mental health professional not
later than the next judicial day. At the hearing the superior court shall
review the determination of the county designated mental health professional
and determine whether an order should be entered requiring the person to be
evaluated at an evaluation and treatment facility. No person referred to an
evaluation and treatment facility may be held at the facility longer than
seventy-two hours.
(2)
If an individual is placed in an evaluation and treatment facility under RCW
10.77.090(1)(d)(iii)(B), a professional person shall evaluate the individual
for purposes of determining whether to file a ninety-day inpatient or
outpatient petition under chapter 71.05 RCW. Immediately following completion
of the evaluation, the professional person shall file a petition or, if the
recommendation of the professional person is to release the individual, present
his or her recommendation to the court. The superior court shall review the
recommendation not later than the next judicial day. If the court rejects
the recommendation to unconditionally release the individual, the court may
order the individual detained at a designated evaluation and treatment facility
for not more than a seventy-two hour evaluation and treatment period and direct
the individual to appear at a surety hearing before that court within
seventy-two hours, or the court may release the individual but direct the
individual to appear at a surety hearing set before that court within eleven
days, at which time the prosecutor may file a petition under this chapter for
ninety-day inpatient or outpatient treatment. If a petition is filed by the
prosecutor, the court may order that the person named in the petition be
detained at the evaluation and treatment facility that performed the evaluation
under this subsection or order the respondent to be in outpatient treatment.
If a petition is filed but the individual fails to appear in court for the
surety hearing, the court shall order that a mental health professional or
peace officer shall take such person or cause such person to be taken into
custody and placed in an evaluation and treatment facility to be brought before
the court the next judicial day after detention. Upon the individual's first
appearance in court after a petition has been filed, proceedings under RCW
71.05.310 and 71.05.320 shall commence. For an individual subject to this
subsection, the prosecutor or professional person may directly file a petition
for ninety-day inpatient or outpatient treatment and no petition for initial
detention or fourteen-day detention is required before such a petition may be
filed.
(3)
If a county designated mental health professional or the professional person
and prosecuting attorney or attorney general, as appropriate, stipulate that
the individual does not present a likelihood of serious harm or is not gravely
disabled, the hearing under this section is not required and the individual, if
in custody, shall be released.
(4)
The individual shall have the rights specified in RCW 71.05.250.
NEW SECTION. Sec. 2. This
act is necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, or
safety, or support of the state government and its existing public
institutions, and takes effect March 1, 1999, or upon approval by the governor,
whichever occurs later.
