Committee advances crisis-hold bill to allow police temporary custody for some neurocognitive emergencies

Boise — The Senate Health and Welfare Committee voted to send Senate Bill 1120 to the full Senate with a do-pass recommendation after a sponsor amendment narrowed the legal standard that allows officers to use a crisis hold for people with neurocognitive disorders.

Senator Melissa Wintrow, sponsor of the bill, told the committee the measure updates a crisis-hold authority the Legislature created last year to cover people with neurocognitive disorders who pose an immediate danger. "A couple years ago, a homeless director called me and said, hey. We have somebody with Huntington's, and they are a danger to self and others," Wintrow said. She said police at that time had only the options of arrest or leaving the person in place because the existing crisis-hold law did not cover neurocognitive conditions.

Wintrow proposed a narrow language change after policing agencies raised liability concerns: strike "person is likely to injure" and replace it with a standard stating "a person's continued liberty poses an imminent danger," a phrasing she said is more familiar to law enforcement. "So the language imminent danger among police, from what I am told, is a much more recognizable legal standard by which, is very serious if they're gonna take somebody into custody," Wintrow said. She added the bill retains the existing, broader "likely to injure themselves or others" standard in a provision allowing physicians, not officers, to place a crisis hold for patients presenting at a hospital.

Senator Ziderfeld asked for an example to clarify the proposed standard; Wintrow described the earlier shelter incident where a person was throwing hot coffee and said officers would be more comfortable using the revised wording to take someone into custody if they could not be persuaded to accept transport or care. "If I can't fib [sic] them into an ambulance or talk them into coming somewhere, I feel more comfortable taking them into custody. So now their continued liberty, if we don't take you in, is gonna continue to pose a threat," Wintrow said.

After brief discussion, Senator Buerke moved and Senator Keiser seconded a motion to send the bill to the Senate with a do-pass recommendation. The motion passed on a voice vote. The committee did not record a roll-call tally in the transcript.

The bill, as amended in committee, keeps the hospital/physician standard unchanged in the relevant section so that medical professionals may still use the "likely to injure" criterion in clinical settings. The committee record shows the change was framed as a clarification to reduce enforcement liability concerns among policing agencies.

No statute names, citations, or specific implementation timelines were given during the committee discussion.