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Senate committee advances bill to expand mental-health diversion and treatment programs
Summary
The Senate Criminal Justice Committee on Thursday reported favorably CS/CS/SB 168, the Tristan Murphy Act, which would create pretrial mental-health diversion processes, expand grants and training, add a Hillsborough County forensic hospital pilot and establish a behavioral health data repository.
Senator Randolph Bradley, sponsor of Senate Bill 168, told the Senate Criminal Justice Committee the bill seeks to divert clinically appropriate defendants with mental illness away from jail and into treatment programs.
The bill, which the committee reported favorably, would create a model process for pretrial misdemeanor and felony mental-health diversion, allow courts to condition release on compliance with treatment, expand the allowable uses of the Criminal Justice, Mental Health, and Substance Abuse Reinvestment Grant Program, add Hillsborough County to a forensic hospital diversion pilot, require mental-health evaluations after competency restoration for defendants sentenced to probation, and direct the Department of Corrections to evaluate inmates’ mental fitness before assigning work duties.
The legislation was presented to the committee as the Tristan Murphy Act in memory of Tristan Murphy, who took his own life shortly after entering a Florida prison following a felony littering conviction. Cindy Murphy, Tristan’s mother, and Cody Murphy, his son, attended and spoke during public comment. Cindy Murphy asked senators to pass the bill so other families do not experience similar losses; Cody Murphy read a statement describing lengthy delays his father experienced before receiving competency restoration services.
Advocacy groups and law-enforcement leaders urged support. Carolyn McLean, executive director of NAMI Florida, told the committee that about 40 percent of people in custody have a mental-health diagnosis and said the bill creates “multiple pathways to divert people out of the criminal justice system into the treatment system where they belong.” Cheryl Virda, operations manager and advocacy liaison for NAMI Jacksonville, said the bill could expand training for 911 operators and EMTs and argued that broader crisis intervention training for law enforcement “will keep both our law enforcement officers and the loved one having that crisis safe.” Sheriff Bill Permel of Charlotte County said the bill “is going to save lives,” described the current competency-restoration system as costly and limited in capacity, and urged passage.
Senator Bradley noted that the state spends heavily on competency-restoration placements that prepare defendants for trial but do not ensure long-term recovery: “The goal is not even stability and recovery. The goal is just to be able to identify who the judge and the prosecutor are in the courtroom,” he said. The bill also would authorize grant funding for specialized training, including for 911 operators and EMTs, and would remove a matching-fund requirement for fiscally constrained counties.
After a brief amendment to fix a technical drafting error amending how diversion assessment provisions apply, the committee adopted the amendment without objection and voted to report CS for SB 168 favorably.
The committee’s action sends the measure to its next committee or to the full Senate as determined by Senate rules. The bill text and amendment were presented and debated during the committee hearing; no fiscal note discussion beyond grant-match relief was recorded in the committee transcript.
