Senate Judiciary [Apr 13, 2026]

Good afternoon, everyone. Senate Judiciary Committee will please come to order on Monday, the 13th of April. Ms. Jensen, please start us off with a roll call.

Here. Henriksen. Here.

Present. Roberts. Used. Mr. Chair. Here.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, committee members. What an honor to be in front of you all today. I think in my tenure, I believe this is my first presentation to the Senate Judiciary Committee and what a heavy lift, what a really important policy consideration for the you all today. First, thank Senator Mobley for the invitation to join her on this bill. We've worked on some other bills in the past. And again, just the impact of this bill is so important to Colorado. I can't believe the effort that has gone into this policy construction really since last summer. The public defenders and the AG's offices, just the drafter, the fiscal analyst, just what an amazing lift. I'll be fairly brief with my opening comments, but I have some prepared ones I wanted to share with you. We are here today to address a critical gap in our criminal justice and mental health system, systems that leaves our communities less safe while it fails our most vulnerable populations. Dangerous individuals who have committed serious crimes are being released back into Colorado communities without any form of treatment or oversight. Right now when a defendant is found to be incompetent to stand trial and is unlikely to be restored to competency Colorado law requires the court to dismiss the charges This policy has led to tragedies in almost every corner of our state. We've all seen the news coverage of these cases. A doctor healing patients in his own office, stabbed by someone who walked free just months later. Four innocent people attacked on the 16th Street Mall by an incompetent defendant who was released from custody just weeks earlier. His mental health needs unmet. His danger to others ignored. A group of school children having fun on a playground stalked by someone trying to kidnap them. Someone who will never face charges for terrorizing those kids. These aren't just headlines. These are real Coloradans trying to live their lives who were harmed because of a dangerous blind spot in our law. The gap in systems has created an impossible situation. We have individuals who have committed heinous acts of murder, violence, or sexual offenses who clearly need intensive treatment and supervision, but are being released without a structured long-term system in place. There's no mechanism for the state to step in. The criminal case gets dismissed. these individuals cycle back into our communities without adequate support or monitoring, putting victims and the public at risk while failing in the state's duty to provide the care that these defendants desperately need. The Constitution rightly prohibits the indefinite detention of individuals with mental conditions like profound intellectual disabilities or advanced dementia, who cannot be restored to mental fitness by a hospital or through medical treatment. Judges are required by the law to dismiss these cases. We are not saying we should violate this principle, but the Constitution also does require us to abandon these individuals and our communities. What's missing isn't constitutional authority. What's missing is a bridge, a structured pathway from the criminal system into the civil treatment system where courts can order long-term care and supervision. Senate Bill 149 will build that bridge. The bill requires a criminal court to order civil commitment of a criminal defendant only after they've held a trial and determined four things. The person is incompetent and unlikely to be restorable or has hid a maximum amount of time allotted to be restored to competency, has committed a homicide, crime of violence, or a felony unlawful sexual behavior, and lastly that they pose substantial risk of harm to others. During this process, the person has counsel, access to experts, and discovery, and the judge must make that determination within six months unless the defendant waives that deadline. Once committed, their case is treated much like not guilty by reason of insanity cases, in which the court will retain supervision over termination to ensure that both the community safety aspect as well as the treatment aspect are considered before release. I'll let my co-sponsor explain the individualized treatment pathways for these defendants and more changes which we are making to help improve the system for Coloradans. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks, Committee, for being here. I'm sure you've all spent, you know, your weekend reading these 197 pages of the bill and almost 30 pages of the fiscal note. And I appreciate that. And even if you haven't, that's okay, too. I want to start by first saying thank you to all the people who have worked so hard on this bill, to draft the bill, to come up with a fiscal impact, to write amendments, to offer amendments. I mean, the room is full of people who have an interest in what happens here today and next week when we come back to actually vote on the bill. I also want to thank all the people who are here who have been harmed by these gaps in our system. And some of the people are victims of crime perpetrated by people who are part of the competency system. but also some of the victims are the family members of the people who have serious mental illness, who have tried and tried and tried to get help for their family member and failed. And so everybody is actually a victim of a system that isn't working in the way that it needs to work. But I also want to say at the outset that most people who have serious mental illness are not dangerous, have never committed a crime, and are living on our streets and suffering from the fact that they can't get treatment. that right now in Colorado, almost the only path to treatment is through the criminal justice system. And that is an incredibly broken situation that this bill doesn't address. This bill isn't really about that. There are some parts of the bill that talk about that, but for the most part, this bill isn't about that. And I just want you to understand that part of the harm of all the media attention that this bill has gotten, of all the attention in the building and on Twitter when famous people tweet about our failings, there's real harm done to the entire population of people who have a mental illness, a serious brain disorder. because that amps up the stigma It amps up the fear of people who are sick through no fault of their own And my first reaction to the tweet that brought this firestorm of activity was, this is going to set back the cause of people who are mentally ill by a whole lot if we don't address it, and if we don't address it in a way that is really meaningful. So I just wanted to make sure that we had that in hand. As Mr. Chair pointed out, it's a big bill. But what is big? It's not a big amount of policy, actually. It's not a big amount of people who are going to be helped by what we do here today. It's actually a very narrow bill. And it is meant to make sure that people who have a serious brain disorder, whether it's a neurocognitive disorder or a serious mental illness or an intellectual or developmental disability, who, as a result of those things, has committed or is alleged to have committed serious crimes. It is meant to make sure that those people get into an appropriate placement. And for somebody with a mental health disorder, like schizoaffective disorder or schizophrenia or some other kind of psychosis, that would be in the state hospital for somebody who has IDD. That would be in a secure placement in a regional center for somebody who has Alzheimer's. That might be a secure placement in a nursing home. And we, in this bill, had to create pathways to make sure that people could get into those different settings because that doesn't exist right now. and that's not a lot of people. We have some disagreement among the people who have been working on this bill about how many people is it. Is it 25 to 45? Is it 25 to 60? Is it 68? I mean, literally that is the number that we're talking about. Somewhere in this range, let's call it 25 to 50 people who aren't safe to be out in the community but cannot be criminally prosecuted. And so in a way, it's a very small bill. It just happens to weigh a lot and it has a lot of pages. And it has a lot of import in terms of fixing it because it isn't good for anybody to have people who are dangerous out on the street, when we know that they are dangerous, when we know why, and we know actually how to help them, and we know how to help our community be safe, but we willfully turn the other way and decide to ignore it. And this isn't a new problem. This has been going on in Colorado for 50 years. we have willfully turned our back on people who are serious mentally ill. We have said, oh, well, This person has an IDD, and we don't have a placement for them, and we're just going to let them go, even though we know they're dangerous. And that actually is the case. The person in Weld County, who was the sort of original start of a lot of the media attention around this, That young man had been involved in the criminal justice system for about 10 years, had multiple times over the course of those years committed crime, and been released back to the street over and over and over again. And that should not have happened then, and it should not happen now. And the bill is really meant to address that. But I don't want anybody to think that this just happened last summer. It isn't the result of some other legislation that got passed in the last couple of years. It is the result of 50 years of doing the wrong thing. and now we have an opportunity to do the right thing. And I think we have resources in the legislative set aside for this bill to actually address the need for these placements. One of the things that's a little bit troubling is that this money that's in this bill, not what's in the fiscal note, because that is not something we're going to do. And there will be a bunch of amendments to address the fiscal note, because it's not the fiscal analyst's fault that the fiscal note is way above the set-aside. It's not even the department's fault. It really is that we have to narrow what we're doing with the bill. And that's too bad. because, again, we have a civil system that says if you haven't committed a crime, we are going to wait until you do, and then we're going to help you, maybe. And now we're saying not only do you have to commit a crime, you actually have to kill somebody or violently rape somebody before we're going to help you. And that's too bad. But I do live here in the real world, and I'm on the Joint Budget Committee, and I understand that we have fiscal constraints. But we have to come back another day and actually take a much bigger look at the problem that we have created over the course of the last 50 years or more around how do we help people. And one of the criticisms we've heard about the bill is that it's taking away people's rights. And I don't want to take away people's rights, but I actually don't want my kid to have the right to suffer and die on the streets because he can't get the care that he needs. I don't think anybody wants that. And yes, some people do need involuntary treatment and involuntary commitment so that they can get the help they need. And denying that and pretending that that's not the case is not going to help us fix what's gone wrong. So there are some things in this bill that are addressing our civil commitment system and I will fight to make sure that we keep those things in here But there are a lot of amendments that are around narrowing the bill and really addressing the very dangerous people, and I understand why we're doing that. I think we do need to do both. We need to protect people's civil rights, but we also need to make sure people are getting the care that they need. I'll just put in the context for you all, because I know you all know my story, because I share it every chance I get. But my kid right now is in the middle of a mental health crisis that started about a month ago. And last week, I had to have him taken from my home in handcuffs by the police. And he was brought to the crisis center where I live. It's actually in Louisville. and I went there the next morning and I said, are you going to help him? And they said, does he want help? And I said, no, he doesn't want help because he doesn't know he needs help because he has schizoaffective disorder and he's off of his meds and he's having, he's in psychosis. And they said, oh, well, we can't help him then because he doesn't want help. And it's like, well, that actually is not true. And so that is part of this bill is to clarify that, yes, in fact, we can help people even if they don't know they need help. And that is an important part of the bill that has to stay. I believe that what we're doing here is right. This is responsible legislation. This is bipartisan. It is taking us to a place that we need to do. This is something we absolutely need to address. Not fixing it is bad. And I just want you to all understand that. And we have, I don't know, I'm looking over at the drafter, we have, I don't know, 25 amendments. and we have to spend the next week making sure that the amendments are doing what we all agree to and what we think they're doing and that they're addressing this oversized fiscal note and that we are going to end up in a good place. And at the end of the day, when we come back next week, I hope that we will earn all of your yes votes on this bill. And I think we're happy to take any questions.

Ms Dotter Thank you Mr Chair and thank you members of the Judiciary Committee My name is Jessica Dotter I am the Chief for Legislative Policy and Special Victims Prosecution here on behalf of all 23 elected district attorneys in support of this bill Dangerous and permanently incompetent criminal defendants were having their cases dismissed after the passage of 1304. Sponsors of that bill, including sponsors that we just heard from, and the Governor's Office, asked the District Attorneys Council and the public defenders to create a solution to that problem. We've come together, and despite our typical differences in this room in particular, we have completely aligned on that solution with the public defender's office, a very, very rare sighting in this building. That solution largely mirrors the way that the state handles not guilty by reason of insanity cases in terms of requiring court oversight throughout any commitment process of a criminal defendant from beginning all the way through the potential for termination after they've been civilly committed. It provides substantial opportunity to appropriately place these dangerous defendants in the court process and ensures that victims' voices are heard and considered throughout these new hearings. However, if there is no appropriate placement available after the hospitals, private facilities, guardians bridges liaisons take over six months or so to try to place this person the last resort is the state hospital and that's to ensure that we don't just have a run through of what we're dealing with currently where these folks are just put back into the community and their cases are dismissed despite the clear risk that they pose the governor's agreed with us since he said in january that when individuals are found incompetent to proceed and pose a danger to themselves or others, they should not be released to the street. He said they need secure commitment, including services and supports in order to protect public safety. And this bill achieves that wish. We've dedicated weeks and months to stakeholding and can happily report to this committee that stakeholders did not generally have disagreement with the goals that I described above. The pressure point, of course, comes over concerns about cost. That the position that the public defender's office and the District Attorney's Council take are that the costs must be found and that this has to be done right. Our community can't afford a window dressing bill that fails to ensure that permanently incompetent and dangerous people are released back into the community. Committee members can expect amendments which address initial and more technical and procedural concerns as well as policy concerns from subject matter experts in hospitals, from the county attorney's offices, the Governor's Office, Department of Human Services and HICPF, disability law advocates, and can hear about amendments in the following week that make improvements to the system in the eyes of psychologists, psychiatrists, public guardians, skilled nursing facilities, and victim advocates. We're happy to go more in depth about the nature of those amendments, but I can say that the ones that our sponsors will be introducing next Monday ensure that the bill does take care and provide the solution that I described above. We ask for your support.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm James Karbach from the Office of the State Public Defender here in support of this bill. We did come to the table in response to the call of multiple legislators in the governor's office to address problems in the competency system after working on different bills for years in the competency space. I want to emphasize that we agree with what Senator Immobile said that this problem is 40 to 50 years in the making It was in 1972 in Jackson v Indiana when the United States Supreme Court said if you are unrestorable in the foreseeable future if you are incompetent you have to be released So no matter what recent legislation, including House Bill 23, 1034, said about dismissing the case, if you were unrestorable and incompetent, your case couldn't have anything done in it, and you had to be released. This is not a problem of recent legislation, nor is the broken civil system and the difficulty getting into it and getting care in the involuntary system in our state. Having said that, there are gaps, including people being released without any meaningful care if they are unrestorable. And I want to emphasize, when somebody's found unrestorable, that's usually the result of an independent expert opining on their competency and that they're unrestorable. They are very, very ill. I also want to emphasize, that's not a defense tactic. The Supreme Court is very clear that defense lawyers, prosecutors, and judges are ethically bound to raise competency when someone's incompetent in court. There are gaps in our what should be customary civil commitment process to deal with people that have hurt people. There is a gap if someone has a neurocognitive deficit rather than traditional psychiatric illness or IDD, intellectual and developmental disability, that really means it's something you had since you were a juvenile. So when I say neurocognitive, I mean if you get a TBI, if you get Alzheimer's. We don't have the same system of involuntary care if you're dangerous. And our state's worked hard to interpret laws and create this gap that other states don't have. And then finally, there is our civil system. Public defenders bear witness to our clients suffering all the time. Clients who sometimes are very ill and gravely disabled and who we cannot, even though they cycle through the jail on arrests, we can't get into care. And so this bill seeks to address pieces of all of that. It is probably the most complex piece of legislation I've worked on. But the Public Defender's Office, for the sake of our clients, and that's the piece we care about, is trying to make this system work better for them so they don't suffer. But we also are trying to be good stakeholders in the real world in addressing these problems. We've done the best we can to participate in that process, and we'll continue to do so. And that's why we support the bill.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My name is Brad Turner. I'm an attorney with the Colorado District Attorney's Council, and I had the honor and privilege of working on this legislation with the sponsors, CDAC, and the Office of the State Public Defender. I want to just briefly talk about the size of the bill. a substantial amount of the size of the bill actually comes from an effort to reorganize Article 8.5. So a significant amount of what you see in the bill is actually just relocated language and is not substantive changes. I also want to talk about the burdens that prosecutors face currently under current law at restorability hearings. Restorability hearings are the things, this is where a defense counsel says on behalf of their client, I believe my client's case should be dismissed because they are incompetent and unrestorable. Normally, in the criminal justice system, when a defense counsel asks for a case to be dismissed, It is the burden on the defense counsel to explain to the court and justify that dismissal. However, as a result of recent legislation, there is a presumption against the prosecution. There is a presumption in favor of these defendants being found unrestorable. And the prosecution is being asked in these cases to disprove that presumption. That is extremely difficult for prosecutors to do. And in certain circumstances, it has resulted in situations where an expert has opined that the individual might be restorable. Even a very dangerous individual might be restorable, but the judge is compelled by the law to dismiss the case anyway. Because the prosecution can't meet a nearly impossible burden. This bill changes those burdens. It rebalances the burdens to ensure a more fair, equitable distribution of burden. The defense, in serious cases like felony VRA cases, if they seek to dismiss the case because the defendant is unrestorable, they must prove that the defendant is unrestorable by preponderance of the evidence. And all other case types. The prosecution must continue to prove the defendant is restorable to avoid case dismissal. Finally, I do want to briefly talk about this pathway that we've created for individuals who are incompetent, unrestorable, and who have committed very serious crimes, homicides, crimes of violence, felony unlawful sexual behavior, and who presently pose a substantial risk of serious harm to others. we have created a pathway to ensure that those individuals receive treatment before they are released back to the community. We have created a pathway to ensure that they are not released back to the community until it is safe to do so. That is something I'm happy to talk more about and how that works and why it's critical and important for protecting Coloradans and getting these particular defendants the help that they need to avoid further endangering other people.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just have one question. This question is for Ms. Dotter. And I think it's, I think for me it goes to the root of this issue, and I think what is on the minds of so many Coloradans right now with this issue And with this bill, just put it to you straight forward, what guarantee do we have that dangerous individuals are not going to be released back into the community if we can't find a placement for them?

Good for now. Okay, Senator Zamora Wilson.

Mr. Turner. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, Senator. I'll talk about the dangerous person pathway. There are two sort of sub-pathways within the dangerous person pathway. There's civil commitment, and that's for individuals with psychiatric disorders. And then there's enhanced protective placement. And that's for individuals who have neurocognitive disorders or intellectual and developmental disabilities. Both function in almost identical ways except to make sure that the individuals get treatment that is appropriate for them. Both require the state to exhaustively search for treatment providers who can treat these individuals. If the state cannot identify anyone who can treat these individuals, then and only then must the state hospital serve as a provider of last resort. And even then, once that happens, that individual can move, sometimes it's called step down, step down from the state hospital into another facility, another provider, sometimes even a community-based provider, so long as it is safe, is appropriate for the defendant, and it is safe for the victims in the community. And that can happen frequently until this individual is terminated from the civil commitment or the enhanced protective placement. That occurs when the individual no longer poses a substantial risk of serious harm to others or no longer has a mental health disorder and has demonstrated compliance the ability and willingness to comply with the law and I happy to go into the criteria for how they get into this but we covered that a little bit already so I wanted to focus more on what happens once they in this pathway

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This goes to Ms. Daughter. You mentioned about some of the amendments. I don't know if you wanted to touch on any of those, just to say your stance on them or elaborate on them.

Senator Smoor-Wosnick.

Yeah, I'm going to defer to Mr. Carbach, because I know that he'd been working on changes in that definition for a person who qualifies to having a persistent mental health disorder. So that's that cycling through. Mr. Carbach.

So if you have a requisite number of trips through the system where it's sort of starting and stopping, and you're not accepting voluntary care, or if you're accepting voluntary care, there's a reason to believe you're not going to stick with it, and there's reason to believe that if you don't get involuntary care, you're going to continue to have these trips through the system, that would qualify you for intervention under this concept of persistent mental illness. And so that's already in the bill. But the idea really is not to put more people into the system, but to try and take a harder look at whether we should apply some involuntary care over a little bit longer period of time so that we don't have this cycle to emergency room, jail, emergency room, jail, emergency room, jail, jail, emergency room, emergency room. That's the hope with that concept. Members, other questions of this panel? I have a few just to sort of build out our landscape as we get into the afternoon. I think, Mr. Karbach, this one for you since you spoke to it in your opening. Broad strokes, what is a state in constructing its competency and civil framework required to do under U.S. Supreme Court case law, such as Dusky, such as Jackson, such as anything else you might want to mention? versus what is fully a policy choice left to a state in terms of defendants where the question of competency has been raised. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the question. So first of all, as a matter of constitutional due process, if under U.S. Supreme Court precedent a person is incompetent, they can't be tried. and that means that they can't understand the nature of the proceedings and assist their defense lawyer. It is by its very nature evaluated by psychiatrists, but a mixed question of law and medicine. And when those exist, it's always complicated. But plainly, under the U.S. Supreme Court president and Colorado precedent, if a judge, if a defense lawyer, if a prosecutor thinks a person is incompetent, they are duty bound to raise it. And if the court determines, usually through the use of experts, that they are incompetent, they can't be tried. The first step is to try and restore them. But if they can't be restored to the point that they fit the phrase, as created in 1972 by the United States Supreme Court that they are unrestorable in the foreseeable future, then the state either has to release them from custody if they're in custody, or commit them under customary civil commitment. Whether to have customary civil commitment, that's a policy choice by the state. You don't have to have a civil commitment process at all. But if you don't, you have to release the defendant from custody, and frankly you can't move forward with their criminal case. So if you leave a criminal case open but you can't do anything in it and you just have to release a person, I would contend having that case open doesn't make a lot of sense. You could do that. That would be a policy choice. It's a policy choice to nowhere. And so those are the big requirements. If you're incompetent, you can't be tried. And if you're unrestorable in the foreseeable future, you have to be released. There are some other constitutional requirements around civil commitment. If you are going to civilly commit someone, especially for what is an indeterminate period of time, which there's stakeholder disagreement about exactly what that means, you have to make showings by clear and convincing evidence rather than proof beyond a reasonable doubt. So, and my read, again, subject to some measure of interpretation among stakeholders, is that in order to civilly commit someone, you basically have to have two pieces. There has to be some sort of mental abnormality. I use that term broadly because we have a lot of technical terms around mental disability and defect or IDD or neurocognitive. But broadly, you have to have some sort of mental abnormality. and you have to have some level of dangerousness in order to take someone's liberty and put them in an inpatient civil commitment. You have to have both. You cannot commit someone to the civil system just because you believe them to be dangerous absent a mental abnormality. Nor can you commit someone who has a mental abnormality but is not dangerous. You can still provide involuntary care to someone with a mental abnormality under some criteria. but you can't take away their liberty unless there is some measure of dangerousness or grave disability. Thank you, Mr. Karbach. Unpacking a little piece of that, who determines competency? What class of medical professionals? And who might be in one advocacy position or another? but who is vested with what authority in our statutory scheme? Building off of your last answer. Thank you, Mr. Chair. With regard to competency, there is within Title 16, Article 8.5, a definition of who can be a competency evaluator. That is generally a psychiatrist or psychologist with forensic training. So to determine competency, that's the person that would weigh in. There are a number, and I think the Department of Human Services and or the Office of Civil and Forensic Mental Health will testify, so they can put more detail around this, but there are a number of those folks employed by and contracted with under the state that are basically meant to be neutral state doctors that can opine. There are also the ability for second opinions often in reality by people who used to work in those contracts that offer second opinions but prosecutors and defense lawyers also have the ability to have experts that meet those qualifications weigh in on competency. In the civil system, in order to pursue a civil certification, generally under current law you have to be a professional person, which is a technical term. And again, we're talking in the realm of psychiatrists and doctors. There's also a term of intervening professional. This bill seeks to add intervening professionals into the ability to do some civil certification and pieces within the scope of their license. But currently, they don't opine on that, only people that meet the definition of professional person. Thank you. Mr. Turner, question for you. In your opening, you alluded to where the burden lies presently and how it would change in the bill. I think that's maybe one of the more important changes to the competency half of what the bill is doing as opposed to then the civil structures. Could you unpack that a little bit more? Where does present law put the burden to establish competency or incompetency? and then perhaps by offense classification, where would we land under the bill, at least as it sits in front of us today, and then understanding the amendments are fluid and growing more numerous by the day. If you are aware of amendments that might tinker with those parts of the bill, we'd love it if you would unpack that too. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for the question. I will start by saying I don't think there are any amendments that affect that particular portion of the legislation, So I think we are pretty set on the changing of competency burdens. One thing, I largely agree with Mr. Karbach, but ultimately in the competency system, it's the judge that decides, or historically has been the judge that decides whether a person is or is not incompetent, and it is the judge that decides whether or not a person is or is not restorable. And it is the responsibility of the court to make that decision, albeit with the advice, the opinions, and appropriate deference to medical professionals. The current burden, if an evaluator, any evaluator, regardless of credibility, experience, any of those things, opines that an individual is not restorable, that automatically does two things. One, it mandates a restorability hearing. Two, it mandates that there is a presumption against the prosecution. It says there's a presumption in favor that this person is in fact unrestorable. The burden then shifts to the prosecution to disprove that presumption. It's a little technical. There's a few different levels of burden of proof the prosecution potentially would have to prove. But sometimes the burden on the prosecution is to disprove that the person is unrestorable by clear and convincing evidence. And that is where things get really difficult for prosecutors. And I'll just give you an example. There was a case where, a recent case where a judge had the opinion of two medical evaluators, two forensic evaluators. One evaluator said, I think this person is unrestorable. The other evaluator said, I think this person could be restorable. But because of the presumption and because the way this works the prosecution had to establish that the person was unrestorable by clear and convincing evidence And in that case the judge said I think both of these evaluators are credible Yet I have to find, because I find both of these evaluators credible, I have to find the defendant is unrestorable and I have to dismiss this case. The burdens in the bill shift. It says if the defendant is charged with a felony victim rights crime, a misdemeanor and decent exposure, or a misdemeanor and lawful sexual contact, all person crimes, all significant crimes, then if the defense is asking for the case to be dismissed, then it's the defense that must prove the defendant is unrestorable. There are no automatic presumptions created by a single opinion of a medical evaluator, and the judge is free to credit all evaluators who are credible. and under the way this bill is drafted, in that same situation, if the court thought that there was a chance that this person could be restored and they did not find that the defendant has proven the defendant is unrestorable by a preponderance of the evidence, then the state could attempt to restore that individual. For all other crimes, Mr. Chair, the prosecution would have the burden of proof by preponderance of the evidence of establishing that the defendant is restorable. else the case gets dismissed. Okay, appreciate that. Members, other questions of this panel? All right, we will let you go. Thank you. Thank you. All right, we will call a couple panels in the order encouraged upon the committee by the bill sponsors. Next panel, Amelia McKeon, Nancy Rogers, Matt Conroy, and Leora Joseph. All right. Thanks for being with us. Whoever would like to start off. And there's a gray button partway up the black microphone stem. When the light is green, you're good to go. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chair Wiseman, Vice Chair Roberts, and members of the committee. My name is Nancy Rogers, and I'm the county attorney for the city and county of Broomfield. Broomfield has not taken a formal position on this bill. It's important for me to speak individually about the impact on this bill on county attorney offices. I recognize the need to address this statewide issue, and it is very important. And I appreciate the drafters and all the stakeholders that have worked very hard and have engaged county attorneys from offices of all size on this discussion. As has been mentioned, an outcome of this work is anticipated changes. And we are in support of those amendments that you will see later on in this process. We think they recognize a great deal of work by the stakeholders, and they are critical and reflect months of collaboration to find a path forward that is workable. Broomfield, as you know, is a consolidated city and county. As a county, we are small. We are the smallest county in the metro area. I have the equivalent of half an attorney that works on mental health cases in our office With that knowledge I appreciate the consideration and the impact of this bill on the workload and the knowledge base of those county attorneys that will work on these type of cases going forward. And it's important, I know the bill is large, but that detail is very important to me as a county attorney to ensure that we know what our role is and what the role is of the other people that are involved in this process. We are thankful for the drafters for listening to those needed suggestions and want to extend another round of appreciation for this very important work. And I'm here for questions. Thank you. Okay, thank you. And as we've been doing, we'll go through the entire panel and then we'll open up for questions. Mr. Johnson, we have one more chair here if you want to join us. All right, Ms. McKeon, please go ahead. We'll do in person, then we'll go to Zoom, then we'll go to questions. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. My name is Amelia McKeon, and I serve as the Executive Director for the Colorado Office of Public Guardianship. Our office works with some of the most complex individuals in Colorado, many of whom have had significant involvement in law enforcement, adult protective services, and the criminal justice system. These are individuals who often cycle through systems, not because they're unwilling to succeed, but because the system lacks a stable, long-term support structure to help them do so. I'm here today in support of Senate Bill 26-149 and the thoughtful work of the bill's sponsors, writers, and drafters. We appreciate the bill's focus on both community safety and the protection of individual rights. That balance is not easy to achieve, and it's essential in this space. We also appreciate that in the Office of Public Guardianship, that has been explicitly recognized in this process as a partner in supporting individuals with significant needs, including those of criminal justice involvement who often have no family members or natural supports available. As this bill continues to move forward, we support it with amendments that, in conjunction with our partners, continue to address the systemic challenges across the continuum of care. In particular, we're encouraged by efforts to strengthen service connection pathways, ensuring individuals are not only stabilized but connected to ongoing supports. We also support clarity and pathways around guardianship appointment for individuals who require legal decision-making supports, especially when no support alternatives exist. Finally, we believe it's important to include the designation of behavioral health-capable facilities. Expanding access to appropriate residential and treatment settings is a critical component of this continuum, particularly for individuals with high behavioral needs who are currently experiencing barriers to placement. From our experience, one of the most significant gaps in the current system is what happens after service needs have been identified. Without sustained decision-making support and coordinated placement options, individuals often return to crises, leading to repeated law enforcement contact and avoidable system involvement. That is where the Office of Public Guardianship plays a unique role. We provide long-term court-appointed decision-making supports. Through that role, we help stabilize housing, coordinate care, and ensure continuity across systems. The result is reduced recidivism, improved outcomes, and increased safety for both the individual and the community. In closing, we support Senate Bill 26149 and look forward to continuing to work with sponsors and partners to strengthen this bill as it moves through this process. Thank you so much for your time and consideration in support of this bill. I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Ms. Joseph, please go ahead. Thank you so much and good afternoon members of the committee. What an honor it is to be here today as we continue to talk together as a state leadership about the important intersection between mental health and safety. We have been incredibly honored in our role, and to be clear, my current role right now, I'm the Deputy Executive Director at the Colorado Department of Human Services, and in that capacity, I oversee both state mental health hospitals, all of the evaluators you've heard mentioned, as well as some of our outpatient projects, our mental health transition living homes. and it has been an incredible honor to watch the district attorneys, the public defenders, work side by side with agency staff. While security and safety are always important, what has been the most heartening part of this process is watching everyone delve into the essence of medical care and that is what this is about. How do we treat people in the right settings at the right times and making sure that everyone is receiving the kind of help that they need. In this position, the Department remains in support with the amendments that we know are going to come and will be presenting to all of you. We are excited about the future here as we provide care to our Coloradans. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. My name is Jack Johnson. I'm an attorney at Disability Law Colorado here testifying in an amended position on Senate Bill 149. I want to begin by acknowledging that my organization has been in litigation for the state for over a decade for their failure to provide adequate treatment and care for people with disabilities who end up on the competency wait list. This has been a very complex litigation that continues today as a result of what we see as a failed system in the state of Colorado. I also want to acknowledge the fact that this is a very real problem. There are people in our community who need help, not only in Colorado, but nationwide, and who, in absence of that help, are not able to commit criminal acts. In 2025, Mental Health America ranked Colorado 41st in overall mental health wellness and 48th for adult mental health wellness. We have failed, as a state, to provide adequate mental health capacity for our community. Additionally, Colorado's developmental disability waiver, one of the primary methods for receiving adequate care of a person who has a developmental disability, has a wait list that now exceeds 10 years. All of this is in addition to the fact that this state and the federal government are going to cut Colorado's Medicaid to a point that will continue to harm this population. These access to barriers will only worsen as we continue to fail to invest in community-appropriate treatment and care. When you don't provide treatment, people go untreated. When that happens, they deteriorate, and without access to care, they may commit a crime. Colorado laws that allow for a person to be forcibly involuntarily committed exist. If you are a danger to yourself or others, whether it is as a result of a mental disability or a developmental disability, you can be forced into involuntary treatment or care. Where we fail is to provide an adequate level of care to prevent that from happening. To be clear, previous legislation, including House Bill 1034, did not cause this problem, and it did not make it worse. At the core, this bill fails to do the thing that we need most, which is to prevent these people from committing these acts to begin with by providing adequate treatment and care. care. We appreciate the sponsors' work to work with amendments to try to address these gaps, and we are hopeful that we can get to a point in this legislation where we can provide where we can get the appropriate level of care to people while also addressing important public safety needs Thank you for your time and I happy to answer questions Thank you. If you'll all please hold, we'll hear online from Mr. Conroy, then we'll come back to questions. Sir, please go ahead. Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. My name is Matthew Conroy, and I have been an assistant county attorney for Weld County for almost four years now, handling our civil mental health docket. Just for reference, every year my office, and we're not as big as some of the larger metro counties in terms of population, my office handles about 250 mental health cases with no criminal components. And so we really see this bill as just addressing that a gap that I think all the stakeholders have identified in the transition from the criminal system into the civil system. Both Weld County and the Weld County Attorney's Office are in an amend position on this bill. We greatly appreciate all the hard work that has gone into it from the sponsors as well as the stakeholders. And we think where the amendments will end up next week will hopefully be in a good spot that we will be supportive and help fill this gap to keep our community safe. And so I appreciate your time and attention to these comments. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Committee questions of this panel of witnesses. Mr. Johnson, I have one for you. sort of, maybe it's not directly what the bill is about, but I couldn't help wondering, collateral impact on the litigation that you referred to for the state's failure to meet timelines, raising due process issues. How, if at all, do you see the bill, maybe just in its introduced form, cutting on that? I think of the burden shifting that Mr. Turner spoke to as relevant in some respects, maybe by getting some people out of the system more readily. There would all other things equal be a relaxation of the pressure on the system of evaluation, restoration, improving timelines relevant to the litigation, but where we have a presumption running the other way, opposite effect. It seems to me it just comes down to numbers. I would love your perspective. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair, for that question. I think there are probably all components of this bill will impact the wait list. The analysis of that is unclear given all the amendments of what that impact will be. I think generally the burden shifting provisions will likely slow down the release of individuals who are on the competency wait list that will have an impact on the wait list. The commitment processes, I think, I want to be clear, I really appreciate the sponsors and the proponents working with us related to the civil rights concerns on those processes. Even if it is all done right and with respect to an individual's civil rights, you have a problem where we as a state, and to Ms. Joseph's point, as an organization that OCFMH is, and that hospital, have a set number of beds. And so when you create a system that allows people to go to those beds, as a placement of the last resort, which currently exists for NGRI, where someone is in NGRI, they go to the state hospital. That's an automatic bed. What you do is you take that bed away from somewhere else. And the two other appropriate placements, if it's not NGRI and it's not this placement of last resort for this new process of civil commitment, you're taking away beds from existing civil commitment for people who haven't committed crimes or from competency restoration. The reality is it very likely that without building additional capacity you would see the wait list be negatively impacted by taking away those beds from the competency restoration process and from the existing civil commitment process One of the underlying concerns, and this is not unique to just this bill, but it's about the conversation that surrounds this bill, is that if you condition commitment, care, placement, payment, or anything else on having to commit a crime, and for this bill's instance, a very serious crime, all you're doing is saying that you're not going to get care unless you commit one of those crimes. That means that you will have to have committed that act, which means that we're not actually making the public any safer. So if we fail to invest in some of these other treatments, not only will you make the waitlist worse, but you won't actually make the community any safer. Thank you. Ms. Joseph, I should invite you to speak to the same thing if you'd like to. Thank you, Senator. Senator, we are in active litigation right now on this issue, and probably I'm going to defer to the plaintiff in the situation who answered the question. Heard to me as I put the question that that might have to be your answer, but I didn't want to be unfair and not give you a chance since I had raised a subject that I know implicates your department fundamentally. Okay. Thank you. Members, other questions of this panel? Seeing none, we'll let you off the hook. Thank you. Okay, next panel of witnesses will be DA Alexis King, Joseph Bowman, DA Michael Allen, and Brittany Visage, please. All right. Thank you all for being with us. Whoever would like to start. Okay. And there's a little gray button halfway up the black stem on the microphone and when the light turns green on the mic, you're good to go. Thank you, Chair. I believe that I'll be the first one to speak today. My name is Alexis King. I'm the District Attorney for the 1st Judicial District, which includes the communities of Jefferson and Gilpin County. Issues of competency and shortfalls of the current law is happening in a wide range of cases throughout the 1st Judicial District. It includes attempt murders, sexual assaults, and deadly DUI crashes. I'm going to talk to you about a couple of cases and frankly I'm just urging you to support we had the Dixon case where a defendant faced multiple felonies for sexually assaulting a child he as mentioned in some of the earlier testimony had neurocognitive issues and therefore faced multiple reasons for evaluation and was deemed unfit to stand trial. With that finding from credible medical experts, we were not able to offer any oversight or consequences or safety for the community as the case was dismissed. The McPherson case was a case where a patient who was dealing with psychosis entered his primary care physician's office and stabbed his own doctor. He was found incompetent. It took complete collaboration, much like you saw in the first panel, between the DA the defense the court and the county attorney to get a bed ultimately at the state hospital with no guarantee that he would be held for longer than 35 days And no given his history of noncompliance we were incredibly concerned about his ability to be hospitalized and then instantly leave once compliant and then fall out of compliance again. We were actually grateful to local media coverage by Denver 7 that really helped advocate for our position and share the frustrations that arose due to the current state of the law when Mr. McPherson was finally transferred to Pueblo. Lastly, we have the Ramirez matter, and I'm fortunate enough to be joined today by Mr. Bowman, who I think will talk directly to that case. It was a deadly DUI crash, and the defendant was found incompetent to proceed, again, by credible medical experts and charges had to be dropped, he had a TBI that made it impossible for us to go forward. Again, he walked out of the courthouse with no consequences, no supervision, and no way to ensure ongoing community safety. There's a gap in the public safety system as it stands right now. There's no pathway, no mechanism for district attorneys to intervene and protect the community and get the defendant into treatment once a case is dismissed as required under current law. There's no obligation for anyone else to support and intervene. And qualifying for treatment involves the county attorneys initiating civil commitment, which we have done in the McPherson case. We were able to do that. But I'll be clear. I have an incredibly adept county attorney's office that has very experienced folks in it. And we're able to work together on issues like this. And I don't think every community is as fortunate as I am. So for all these reasons, I'm happy, of course, to take your questions. I urge your support. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Bowman. Please go ahead. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. My name is Joseph Bowman, and I am a victim of a case that was ultimately derailed by HB 24-1034, the statute overseeing competency in adult defendants. A word I am going to repeat during my testimony is suffering, because it is collective and individual suffering being brought before this committee today with the hard-managed hope of alleviation. On December 17th of 2021, Guillermo Ramirez hit my family's vehicle after running a red-lighted over 100 miles per hour. He was drunk, he was on drugs, and he had a suspended license. The girl in the car with him went through the windshield and died at the scene, while our vehicle burst into flames upon impact. Had it not been for the heroism of Officer Phil Rogers of the Golden Police Department, my family and I would have burned to death that morning. It pains me to report to you that my mother did not survive the injuries that she sustained. Her suffering in the final months of her life is something I carry every waking moment. For three and a half years, our case against Guillermo Ramirez stalled out in Jefferson County because doctors from the state mental hospital in Pueblo, overseen by Lenora Joseph, refused to do their due diligence. Despite the burden of proof being wrongfully placed on the prosecution, they masterfully proved that Ramirez was gaming a broken system and only pretending to be incompetent in order to avoid prosecution. On April 17th of last year, Guillermo Ramirez was able to walk away, all charges against him dismissed. The judge presiding over our case openly wept at the bench that day, saying she mourned my mother and the girl who accompanied Ramirez that morning, and mourned the fact that the statute had stripped her of her own authority and did not give her any alternatives. Through tears, she stated that her deepest regret was that my family would be walking away not with a sense of justice and closure, but instead an immeasurable sense of prolonged suffering. My suffering has included a nervous breakdown, medication, and near hospitalization, unable to come to terms with my mother not only being murdered, but her killer going free because of a law that he played to his advantage. Today you have a golden opportunity before you to consider a bill that I have spent the past year advocating for to everyone who would listen, from Attorney General Weiser to Governor Polis to a significant portion of this legislative body, a bill that means everything to me and to every other victim in this room. Today you have the decision to alleviate our fears and our suffering or to prolong them even further. I urge you to help us fix what we know is broken and support Senate Bill 149. I thank you all for your time. Thank you, sir. Ms. Visage, please go ahead. Good morning, or sorry, good afternoon, Mr. Chair, members of the committee. I want to thank you for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Brittany Visage, and I'm here in support of this bill on behalf of my mother, Christy Kirst, who can't be here today. It's hard to summarize the worst nine months of your life in a two-minute statement, but I will try. On an ordinary day in November 2024, during an ordinary trip to McDonald's, my family's lives became everything but. A vehicle driven by an unknown man, later to be identified as Joel Lang, struck the side of my car while backing out of the adjacent parking spot. When my mom and I got out to look at the damage, Joel looked me in the eyes as he put the car in drive and hit my mom with his van. And continued to drive as I ran along the side of the van, begging him to stop. But all my efforts that day were in vain. While he was likely in his warm car, I was taking off my sweater in the freezing cold so bystanders could attempt to turn and get my mother's leg. While he was likely eating his McDonald's, I was watching the medical personnel exit the ambulance to tell me the attempts at life-saving measures were unsuccessful, and my mother was dead. While he was likely sitting down trying to relax, I was on the floor screaming, he hit my mom, he hit my mom, over and over again, because I was trying to make sense of everything. But I've had to accept it will never make sense. What I cannot accept is how everything unfolded after that fateful day. On November 6, 2024, Joel Lang turned himself in and admitted to knowingly dragging my mom for over 300 feet to her death. When I was first told Joel's defense team was questioning his competency because of a traumatic brain injury, it was positioned to me that if Joel didn't go to prison, he would be civilly committed. However, ultimately, Joel did not meet the criteria for civil commitment. For months, I sat in the front row of a courtroom watching as Joel had no regret or remorse. I heard expert testimony about when Joel was asked if he understood what being incompetent means, and he responded, it means this problem goes away. I also heard that expert opine that Joel could be restorable. Still, I had to sit there on August 1, 2025, when the judge regretfully had to dismiss the charges. There are no words to express the pain of watching my mother die, but the absolute injustice has only compounded that pain. I firmly believe Senate Bill 26-149 is an essential part of providing mental health treatment to those in need while also prioritizing public safety. Without clear defined pathways for placement, I fear the issues caused by the loopholes in legislation will compile into something even larger, and maybe it will be someone you know and love sitting on the side of the table asking for humanity and accountability. Thank you. Thank you ma Dean Allen please go ahead Thank you Mr Chairman and thank you members of the committee for allowing us this opportunity to come in front of you in support of this bill My name is Michael Allen I the elected DA in El Paso and Teller County the 4th Judicial District I want to talk more about the case that we just heard about from Brittany, and that is in this particular case the defendant had a driver's license, was able to drive through the community, created what would normally be a very minor fender bender in the parking lot, and then made the conscious decision to flee that parking lot after colliding with their vehicle. And in doing so ran over Christy Kirst and killed her in that McDonald's parking lot in Monument, Colorado. He then fled the scene and was not apprehended until multiple days later when he turned himself in and was then charged with murder of Christy Kirst. In this particular case, defense raised competency, and it was determined that Joel Lang had a TBI and potentially some other issues that made him incompetent to proceed in that case. There was a defense expert that was obtained that said that he was incompetent and not restorable. Prosecution also had an expert in that case, and that expert said that he was incompetent but could be restored. And the judge, I want to put on the record, made this quote. Regardless of the seriousness of the offense, the alleged facts, how many people were hurt or killed, how much money was taken, or how much a particular act or acts damaged society, the case ends because the burden is nearly impossible to overcome. And that was the burden that you heard testimony about earlier, the burden that the prosecution has to overcome in a hearing to determine whether somebody is restorable or not. This bill fixes that burden that is nearly impossible to overcome under any circumstance, especially here, which was a perfect scenario to actually have a finding absent this very high burden that the prosecution was not able to overcome in that case. and because of that this bill is an important fix will prevent this type of thing from happening in the future and I urge this committee to support this bill and vote in favor of it alright thank you members questions for our witnesses seeing no questions thank you all for being with us Mr. Bowman, Ms. Visage thanks for coming and sharing your stories thank you Mr. Chairman Okay, next panel will be a group of folks from a behavioral health perspective. Frank Cornelia, Lenya Robinson, Leslie Brooks, Callie Tomei, Aaron Ralston. Ms. Raulston, you were the first person I saw pop up on the screen in here, if you want to go ahead. Sure, happy to. I am joining as a clinical director. I work with Aurora Mental Health and Recovery, and I oversee our forensics programming as clinical director there. We appreciate the intent of SB 149 and share the goal of improving the care pathways. I just want to bring up a practical issue that we believe needs to be addressed in order for this bill to work Under the bill as drafted a certification or court order can be initiated before a provider has been identified but in degree to deliver the care that's needed. So in practice, that means that there is a legal obligation created without a clear entity responsible for delivering that care. The bill relies on care coordination to bridge that gap, but care coordination alone doesn't create the capacity that we ultimately need. And it does not assign the accountability that we also need for the system. When no provider is identified, someone still has to own the outcome. Today, that often falls to providers, even when they are not a part of the initial decision and don't have the ability to meet the need. In our organization, Aurora Mental Health, which is a safety net provider, we see this happening already within the DHS system, where clients, especially if we're talking about child cases, are assigned to have specific assessments completed, and there is not a provider for those assessments. And so they can sit in the system for an extended period of time. And it creates a backlog when the court is saying a specific entity or assessment must be provided. And that doesn't exist to be done. We absolutely believe this bill can work and would recommend a couple of changes. Clear clinical guardrails are going to be really important. The most important is going to be accountability when there's no provider or placement for the person and a defined process when the court order can't be implemented. We are committed to working with the sponsors and the stakeholders to get this bill right. We certainly believe that the support is needed. At this time, thank you for your time and consideration. Okay, thank you. And if everyone will please stay on the Zoom after you've made your initial comments, we'll go to questions at the end. I'm going to go around the screen in the order that I see it here. Ms. Tholle, please go ahead. I hope I'm getting your name right. Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. My name is Callie Toll, and I'm the Director of Forensic Services at Summit Stone Health Partners. I oversee forensic and community-based behavioral health services, including outpatient competency services. We appreciate the intent of Senate Bill 149 and the focus on improving care pathways for a very complex population. What I want this committee to understand is that competency and civil certification serve fundamentally different purposes. And when we blur that distinction, we create clinical and operational risk. The competency system exists to answer a legal question. Can this person meaningfully participate in their defense and understand the charges against them? The civil certification system exists to answer a clinical one. Does this person need involuntary treatment because they are unsafe or unable to care for themselves? Those are not interchangeable pathways, and they are not built on the same criteria, timelines, or treatment expectations. When individuals are routed from competency into civil processes without clear clinical basis, this creates mismatches in placement, delays in care, and in some cases, failure to stabilize the individual. In our work we have seen individuals with significant mental health needs whose conditions are not adequately addressed through the competency process alone In those cases treatment only became effective when we were able to engage the clinical pathways specifically through psychiatric involvement that allowed for appropriate involuntary treatment interventions, including involuntary medications when necessary. The people this bill is designed to serve need a system that is not only clinically sound, but intentionally aligned across legal and clinical decision making. There should not be just legal logic or just clinical logic, but a pathway where those two systems are designed to work together clearly, explicitly, and with shared purpose. Without the alignment, we risk creating pathways that look like a solution on paper but fail the individuals they are meant to serve. Thank you for your time and consideration. Okay, thank you. Ms. Robinson, please go ahead. Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Linda Robinson, and I'm the Chief Clinical and Operations Officer at Jefferson Center for Mental Health. We provide mental health, substance use, and crisis services in Jefferson, Clear Creek, and Gilpin counties. As a safety net provider, we provide care to everyone who comes through our doors, often regardless of the ability to pay. I'm here today to testify in an amend position on this bill. We appreciate the intent of SB 149 and show the goal of ensuring people receive the right care in the right place at the right time. From our perspective, the biggest challenge is how that intent translates into day-to-day operations. What this looks like in practice is decisions being made that the system cannot implement. One concern is that court orders may move forward even when there is no available placement or provider. When that happens, responsibility falls to providers who do not have the authority or resources to fulfill those orders. We are also concerned about clinical decision-making being overridden by the court process. For example, requiring court approval to end a certification introduces delays between clinical decision-making and legal action and can result in individuals remaining in a level of care that is no longer clinically appropriate. In our organization, we regularly see situations where an individual is court-ordered to treatment, but there is no viable community option available, which means either our BASO directs us to take the client at a lower level of care that will not adequately meet their needs, or the client must remain in a higher level of care, often hospitalization unnecessarily. This bill, as written, could increase the likelihood of those situations. These situations also create significant unreimbursed administrative and care coordination work for providers. We believe this bill can work with a few key changes. First, clear clinical guardrails so providers are not required to deliver care outside of clinical standards, scope, or capacity. Second, clear system responsibility for placement and coordination assigned to the Office of Civil and Forensic Mental Health and Behavioral Health Administrative Service Organizations. Third, a process for when a court order cannot be implemented so the court can respond and the burden does not fall on providers. We are committed to working with the sponsors and stakeholders to get this right. With these changes, we believe the bill can better align legal authority with clinical care and system capacity. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you, Dr. Brooks. Please go ahead. Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. My name is Dr. Leslie Brooks. I serve as the Chief Clinical and Medical Officer at Summit Stone Health Partners, where we provide mental health, substance use, and crisis services, including bedded care for crisis stabilization, withdrawal management, 23-hour observation, as well as participation in a variety of judicial problem-solving modalities, including drug court and competency services in Larimer County. We appreciate the intent of SB 149 and share the goal of ensuring that particularly this population of vulnerable individuals receive the right care in the right setting at the right time. Two provisions concern me as a clinician. First, override of clinical determination, as has been mentioned. Under current law, the treating professional ends a certification when the clinical criteria are no longer met. This bill allows courts to override that judgment. That creates a fundamental misalignment. The clinician remains responsible for the patient's care, but may no longer have the authority to determine when continued involuntary treatment is clinically appropriate. In practice, that means patients may be held beyond medical necessity, limiting access for others in acute crisis who are waiting for that same level of care, and limiting reimbursement. Second, the increased requirement for court participation. Every hour a clinician spends in a courtroom is an hour they are not with patients, in a workforce-constrained system that directly reduces access to care. A single hearing can take multiple hours in preparation and in testimony, time that would otherwise be spent treating patients. We believe this bill can work and we strongly support the use of written affidavits and clinical designees to preserve both due process and access. More broadly, expanding legal pathways without aligned clinical authority and capacity risks shifting risk rather than actually improving care. The people this bill is intended to serve need a system where legal and clinical decision making are designed to work together, not intention. I do want to acknowledge that amendments have been discussed today that may address some of these concerns and I appreciate that work. Thank you so much for your time and consideration. All right. Thank you. Mr. Cornelia, please come ahead. Thank you, Chair Wiseman and members of the committee. My name is Frank Cornelia. I'm here on behalf of the Colorado Behavioral Health Care Council representing the state's community mental health centers and comprehensive safety net providers. CBHC supports efforts to improve how Colorado's civil commitment system functions, particularly where individuals are not receiving care and protection the 2765 statute is intended to provide. We support the goal of strengthening that system, but we believe it's critical to focus on how it operates in practice. I want to ground this in that reality. Colorado's civil commitment system is broader than any single provider network, but responsibility within it is not evenly shared. Community behavioral health providers are expected to serve the safety net. We don't have the ability to refuse people, and we are responsible for ongoing care, crisis response and follow-up. other parts of the system, law enforcement, hospitals, housing, and placement operate with discretion. Court-ordered pickups are not consistently executed. Patients may be discharged without notice. Housing and placement options are limited, and individuals often move across jurisdictions without clear ownership of care coordination. So, what we have is a system where clinical responsibility is continuous, but system authority is fragmented and often optional. We know this can work better Colorado once had a statewide continuity of care agreement including collaboration between the state hospital and community providers that helped align expectations across systems That alignment has weakened and we seen more breakdowns, particularly as key transition points like discharge and follow-up care. Expanding civil commitment authority without addressing those gaps risks creating more court orders that the system is not consistently able to carry out. For that reason, CBHC's amendments focus on strengthening execution, clarifying roles, reinforcing accountability, ensuring that when the system acts, it can follow through. We believe a better approach supports the care and protection purpose of the statute, and we appreciate the committee's consideration and also appreciate the willingness of the proponents to consider CBHC's amendments and offer solutions. All right. Thank you. Committee, questions for our witnesses? See no questions here in the room. Thank you all for taking the time to testify with us. Okay. Next panel will be some of our elected district attorneys, D.A. Rourke, D.A. Walsh, and online I believe we have D.A. Padden. We'll start in the room. Whoever would like to kick us off. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, members of the committee. My name is Michael Rourke. I'm the elected district attorney for the 19th Judicial District, which is Will County. I come before you today to testify in support of Senate Bill 149 on behalf of my community and the Colorado District Attorney's Council. Very briefly, my case caused the tweet that's been referred to today. The individual who was the subject of that tweet in 2025 was charged with first-degree burglary as a Class III felony crime of violence and felony menacing, a Class V felony, following breaking into an apartment with a handgun. The next day, while that burglary remained under investigation, this same defendant beat a different victim to the edge of death, knocking him out with a closed punch, jumping on top of his unconscious body and striking him, causing his head to slam against a brick wall and a sidewalk, leaving him with multiple fractures of his skull and brain bleeds. In that case, he was charged with attempted murder and first-degree assault. What we learned was that he had previously been charged with aggravated robbery and two separate cases of second-degree assault in Larimer County. In all three of those cases, competency evaluators determined that he suffered from limited cognitive functioning and opined that he was incompetent and not restorable. All three of those cases had to be dismissed without even being able to try to restore him to competency. Once the charges in my jurisdiction were filed, competency was immediately raised, and once again an evaluator opined not only was the defendant incompetent to proceed and not restorable, but also found that he did not meet the criteria for emergency mental health hold pursuant to Title 27, nor did he meet the requirements for short-term treatment pursuant to Title 27 as well. Pursuant to House Bill 1034, those cases were dismissed. There was no provision allowing mental health professionals to at least try to restore him to competency. There was no provision which allowed for a short-term commitment or inpatient treatment. An exceedingly dangerous individual was simply left out of jail and returned to the streets of my community. Members of the committee this bill gives us the tools that we so desperately need to determine that an individual is an extremely dangerous individual and allowing us to seek treatment or placement excuse me under the enhanced protective placement provisions This bill has broad support and I simply urge you on behalf of the name of public safety and humanity for these defendants that we're discussing to vote yes on Senate Bill 149. I'm very happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you. D.A. Walsh, please go ahead. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, members of the committee. My name is John Walsh. I'm the elected District Attorney here in Denver, and I am here to lend my voice and strong support for this bill. This is a bill that aims to protect the community, prioritize the needs of victims, and at the same time protect the rights of those suffering from mental illness and increasing the likelihood that they will actually receive appropriate care. We have a crisis, I think everyone in this room knows, in the place where the mental health system intersects with the criminal justice system. In too many cases, unfortunately, and we've heard some of them today, people who are in fact dangerous and also suffering from mental illness, our system has simply not been up to the task of dealing with their situation. I want to give you two examples from Denver, and then I want to give you a sense of the scope of the issue in Denver and some of the numbers surrounding that. The first is a defendant by the name of Nunn. In July 2020, Mr. Nunn was charged as an adult, he was a juvenile at the time, with sexually assaulting a disabled woman. He was charged with sexual assault and second-degree burglary. And then two years later, while he was out on bond, he was charged with shooting a teenager. In October of 2023, the court in both cases found him to be permanently incompetent and dismissed those cases. Similarly, and I think this is important to understand, Hamas, we've heard about DUIs, terrible DUIs today. There have been cases of first-degree murder, or what appears to be first-degree murder, that have also been dismissed. In October of 2019, a defendant by the name of Kalkurian here in Denver shot and killed his neighbor. He was charged with first-degree murder, but after years of back-and-forth and numerous competency exams, he was found permanently incompetent just this past year, and his case was dismissed. Now, through the efforts of our team and the city attorney in Denver, he was civilly committed, but that's a short-term civil commitment. And under current law, we are unable to determine whether or not that commitment is continuing. This bill would help address that issue. These are two very notable examples, but they're just a reflection of a bigger problem. In Denver, from 2023 to 2025, we had a total number of cases, 93 cases, that were dismissed because defendants were found unrestorable or defendants reached the maximum time permitted for restoration. That included a homicide. I just mentioned that one. And 64 cases of crimes of violence and 28 cases involving felony unlawful sexual behavior. This is a very significant issue, and we need to address it. This bill does that. I want to focus this committee very briefly. Oh, I'm way over time. I apologize. I want to just emphasize the prioritization of victims that this bill brings to the table, which is very important, and I think that this committee can understand why we're strongly in support of it. Okay, thank you. D.A. Padden, please go ahead. Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee members. I'm Amy Padden. I'm the elected district attorney for the 18th Judicial District and testifying in strong support of this very important bill Unfortunately recently we have seen a cycle of individuals with serious mental illness committing a crime being charged having those charges dismissed and then they commit another crime Although my office did not have the case involving the tweet, there were many tweets about another case my office handled. The case is Solomon Galligan. There was a disturbing video of Galligan chasing children on a schoolyard, and he was charged with attempted kidnapping. This defendant had previously been found to be incompetent and released into the community several times. He had cases in Denver and in Pueblo, a total of eight prior cases. In six of those cases, had been found to be incompetent and not able to be restored. And those charges were dismissed, including two felony assault charges. In my case in Arapahoe County, we were able to have Galligan civilly committed as the statute contemplates. but perhaps the situation of these children being traumatized would have been avoided had Galligan been able to get treatment when he was charged in these other cases. To the points made by Senator Amabile, this bill protects the civil liberties of defendants as well and treats and supports them rather than releases them onto the street. It prioritizes treatments and ensures defendants get the treatment they need for their mental illness and breaks a crime loop that many of these defendants have been bouncing between jail, court, and on the street. It expands support and empowers judges to use more resources to help defendants earlier in the process, including assigning public guardians to advocate for defendants and access to Bridges' wraparound services. And it strengthens systems, creating new processes, hearings, and judicial oversight to ensure every decision is reviewed and rights are protected. I urge you to vote in favor of this bill. Thank you for your time. D.A. Patton, thank you. Committee, questions for any of our witnesses? We've got the committee on a quiet day. All right, thank you all for being with us. Thank you. Okay, next panel will be some folks on behalf of survivor organizations and law enforcement. Do we have Courtney Sutton? I think she may be online. Do we have Elizabeth Newman? Sheriff Tyler Brown and David Carnes. All right, Ms. Sutton, you were the first one to pop up on the screen here. If you can hear us, feel free to activate your camera. Please go ahead. Good afternoon, Chair in the Committee. My name is Courtney Sutton, and I'm the Public Policy Director for COVA, the Colorado Organization for Victim Assistance. Our mission is to provide training, resources, and support for victims of crime and the professionals who serve them. We support HB 26149 and the overhaul of the competency system. I would like to thank the sponsors and stakeholders that are in the community. The stakeholders and stakeholders that led to this policy. This is a highly complex and difficult system for all parties, including victims and survivors. The current competency system is creating additional harms to victims and survivors of crime and our communities. We greatly appreciate that victims' safety is contemplated and prioritized throughout this entire process to ensure they have proper notification, ability to be heard, and treated with care and in consideration. Victims may need additional safety measures that can be ordered by a judge, including blocking the victim's phone number or other conditions to maintain the victim's safety throughout this process and even access. after a criminal case has been dismissed. Due to the determination of a defendant being incompetent, a transfer to civil commitment proceedings, and hearings to terminate civil commitment. The policy adds these stages as critical stages under the Victims Rights Act requiring notification and the right to be heard. I would like to thank all the victims that have come forth today and shared their experience with you. We really greatly appreciate the careful attention of victims' needs throughout the competency process, and we ask for your support on SB 26-149. All right, thank you. Mr. Carnes, please go ahead. Chair and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify. My name is David Carnes and I'm the Public Policy Director at Violence Free Colorado, the State Anti-Domestic Violence Coalition, and I'm here today in support of Senate Bill 149. This is a complex issue that touches multiple systems and requires thoughtful, nuanced discussion. From our perspective, this bill moves the system in a more victim-responsive direction, especially by strengthening notification and helping ensure that victims are not left out at key decisions that may affect their safety. At Violence Free Colorado, we work closely with domestic violence programs and community partners across the state. Before my policy work, I also worked in direct service and saw firsthand how deeply uncertainty can affect survivors in real time. When someone doesn't know what's happening or learns too late that circumstances have changed, that uncertainty can take a real toll on their well-being, mental health, and ability to safety plan for themselves and their children. SB 149 helps ensure that victims are informed of critical developments including transfer, release, furlough, escape, and recapture in cases where underlying criminal matter involved a victim. It also provides notice when there are requests to change material terms of a civil commitment or enhanced protective placement, including requests to move someone from an inpatient setting to an outpatient or less secure setting. In certain circumstances, it also gives victims the opportunity to be heard before a first-time placement into a community-based setting. These are not minor procedural details. For victims, these moments can be some of the most important. In domestic violence cases especially, survivors may already be navigating fear, coercive control, trauma, and ongoing risk. Timely notification does not resolve every concern, but it does give victims information that can be essential to making decisions, accessing support and protecting themselves and their families. Just as importantly, this bill recognizes that when a case shifts into a different legal process, victims should not lose access to this information that may be critical to their safety. That matters. In a complex area like this, that is a meaningful step forward. For those reasons, Violence Free Colorado respectfully urges your support. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Before we go to questions, can we check one more time for Sheriff Tyler Brown or Elizabeth Newman on the Zoom? And Mr. Kearns, Ms. Sutton, if you'll please hold, looks like we're going to be able to expand this panel. All right, Ms. Newman, thanks for joining us. Please go ahead.

All right, Ms. Newman, thank you. Committee, questions for our witnesses? Seeing no questions, thank you all for joining us online. Okay, that exhausted the preliminary panels that the sponsors had indicated. Now I'm just going to go down the list of everybody who signed up through the online interface. If I haven't already called you, we'll try to call folks in person first. Do we have Christian Overby? Please come up. Let's see. Jennifer Turner, Ramona Vigil, and Vincent Etchety. Thanks everyone for being patient with us as we work through everyone who wants to speak to us today. Mr. Overby, why don't you start?

Thank you, Mr. Aitchity.

All right. Thank you. Ms. Vigil, please go ahead.

Thank you. Ms. Turner, please go ahead.

Please check the mic, gray button on the stem. Okay.

All right, thank you. Committee, questions for any of our witnesses? Ms. Turner, I think I have maybe just one for you. So Bridges is newer around here, I mean, dating back less than 10 years, and then sort of re-codified in a way. For folks who are less familiar, could you say very briefly sort of your role in the court system and understanding the amendment situation is in flux? Could you speak at a pretty high level to the nature of the amendments that you are seeking, how is Bridges not plugged into the bill as introduced and how would you like to be or how would you like to not be if you are. Yes, yes, thank you so much.

I understand there's more to come. And I have received the emails that your office has sent about this process. Members, other questions of these witnesses? All right, we'll let you off the hook. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, that panel was folks who had signed up indicating amend. The next panel I will call will be folks who indicated a supportive position, and we'll just alternate back and forth. So for the next panel, do we have Shaden Al-Yami? Do we have Billy Bowman? Julie Bruin, B-R-E-W-E-N, and Andrew Granger. All right. Thank you all for being with us and being patient for an unusual bill here. Ma'am, if you'd like, we'll start with you and then we can just move down the line.

Thank you. Ma'am, please go ahead.

Thank you so much. Let's go ahead.

Just pull the microphone closer to you.

Okay, do you want me to start all over again?

We'll restart.

Thank you, ma'am. Sir.

Thank you sir Committee do we have any questions for this panel Seeing none thank you all so much for being here to tell your stories we really appreciate it Okay moving down the list Matt Buechner Elizabeth Moran Dave Wasserman Anaya Robinson and All right. I think our fourth one. Are you? No. Let's see. Bradley Torch. I think that's remote. And Julie Reskin, remote. Okay. All right. We'll start here in person. Sir, if you want to start here at this end, please go ahead and introduce yourself, and then your two minutes will begin.

Given the complexity of the judicial and health care systems involved in creating a new competency pathway, ensuring hospitals are at the table during policy formation is essential to ensure this pathway is clinically appropriate, administratively feasible, and avoids unintended consequences like emergency department delays and increase on compensated care. We understand that there has been a considerable amount of stakeholder engagement on this proposal, and hospitals were recently brought to the table upon introduction. We appreciate the opportunity to work with bill proponents and sponsors to address our concerns and look forward to continuing these conversations. In particular, hospitals are concerned when clinical decisions are unnecessarily taken out of the hands of clinicians, as is currently proposed for short-term certification. We understand that bill proponents are planning to offer an amendment that would instead require a second opinion by another clinician, an independent examiner. While this would be a step in the right direction, the latest version of the amendment that we have seen would often render it impossible for a medical director to release such hold at many hospitals because the independent examiner cannot be under the supervision of a clinician who is looking to drop the hold. Additionally, hospitals are hoping to ensure that M1 hold processes continue to reflect current practice and ensure people with intellectual and developmental disabilities or neurocognitive disorders without some other treatable illness are not held unnecessarily. Additional definitions like that of persistent mental health disorder do not seem to adequately reflect realities of the patients that hospitals see. We look forward to working with bill proponents and sponsors to ensure that hospital concerns are addressed, to ensure the system functions as this process continues. And thank you for the opportunity. Thank you. Mr. Robinson, please go ahead. Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee members. I'm Minaya Robinson, public policy director at the ACLU of Colorado, here today in an amended position on Senate Bill 149. I want to start by acknowledging the real problem this bill is trying to address. Colorado's competency system is failing people. both individuals in crisis and the communities around them. When someone is found incompetent to proceed and released without meaningful support, that is a gap we need to fix. But Senate Bill 149 moves us in the wrong direction. It expands the role of the criminal legal system in what should be a treatment-driven process, and it does so in ways that raise serious civil liberties concerns without addressing the root cause, a lack of accessible, appropriate behavioral health care. By allowing prosecutors to initiate or drive civil commitment pathways, this blurs the line between treatment and prosecution Civil commitment is supposed to be a narrowly tailored and based on clinical need not influenced by a criminal case that has already been or should be dismissed The bill also increases the likelihood of involuntary confinement and allows evaluations and holds to occur in carceral settings. That raises due process concerns and risks placing people in environments that are not therapeutic and may in fact worsen their condition. Importantly, this approach also raises concerns under Olemsted. Olmstead requires that individuals with disabilities, including mental health conditions, receive services in the most integrated, least restrictive setting appropriate to their needs. Expanding pathways to institutionalization, especially without first ensuring robust community-based alternatives, puts Colorado at risk of moving in the opposite direction of that mandate yet again. Critically, there is little evidence that expanding involuntary commitment in this way improves public safety. sufficient treatment capacity, workforce, and community-based services, we are not solving the problem. We are shifting it into a more restrictive and legally complex system. If we are serious about safety and better outcomes, we should focus on solutions that work. Invest in community-based treatment, housing, and case management so people don't cycle through crisis. Build real capacity in the behavioral health system before expanding legal authority. Keep civil commitment decisions clinically driven and separate from prosecution. And ensure that any intervention is truly the least restrictive option, consistent with both due process and federal disability law. I urge the committee to reconsider this approach and prioritize solutions that are lawful, effective, and centered on care, not control. The ACLU of Colorado agrees with the amendments from Bridges and Disability Law Colorado and asks you to adopt these amendments before moving this bill forward. Thank you. Thank you. Sir, please go ahead. Good evening, Senator Wiseman and other esteemed members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Thank you for allowing me to speak. I'm a public health lobbyist with Merck Pharmaceuticals, but I'm testifying as myself, Dave Wasserman, in an amend or against position for SB 149. I've been tortured over the last five years. Some people call it being gang-stalked. My life's a nightmare. I get followed around by Secret Service agents, ICE agents, and the Department of Justice every single day. The police ignore my phone calls because of what they do to the police in my name. I have a stalker who became a Secret Service agent so he could get back at me for not wanting to live with him. I moved out of his apartment, so he decided to get a job making my life a living hell. He uses Epstein technology to sex traffic my friends and mess with their sexual preferences, like turning them homosexual with technology. I've been assaulted on the streets of Denver, and the police have put me on at least 10 M1 holds and a few M8 holds. I've been violent to victim crimes, and I get thrown in the psych ward because of my persecutors. My housemate beat me with a broomstick in November 2024, and I had to spend five days in the psych ward. The Secret Service agent who bullies me works with other branches of the federal government. I'm one of hundreds of people targeted like that in this city. He takes evidence that I get to try and stop him and then destroys it, and then puts me in the hospital on holds that last me months. I had to drop out of school because of a hold that I was put on, and then the Secret Service agent hacked into MSU Denver's database and changed my withdrawals to Fs so I'd lose my scholarship. I've been given false mental health diagnoses. This is to make it easier to toss me into the psych ward. We don't have a real mental health crisis here in Colorado. They have people listening to AI chatbots so that they could give people schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder with technology Something needs to change but the mental health crisis in Colorado is being done with technology It being done by federal agents Thank you All right Thank you And if you all hold the table we hear from our online witness then we'll go to questions. Ms. Riskin, please go ahead. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. My name is Julie Riskin, and I am one of the co-executive directors of the Colorado Cross Disability Coalition. We are here to express our appreciation of the sponsor's longstanding commitment to do right by people living with significant mental disabilities. We know a lot of work has gone into this bill, and the issue is really complex, but we can do better. Therefore, we are here in an amend position, standing with our advocacy colleagues, specifically the amendments proposed by Bridges of Colorado. People with mental illness, particularly coupled with developmental disabilities, dementia from a disease, and severe long-standing brain injuries often need a highly structured but supportive environment, and they might need it forever. Most of these individuals can do well when this is carried out consistently and with fidelity, but often decompensate without structure. Locking someone in a nursing facility is not going to provide appropriate care. While we know a tiny fraction of this population is dangerous, some of which we've heard about today, We strenuously object to placing someone that might be violent, especially with lack of structure, with other vulnerable people who are locked in a place like a nursing facility. We definitely want to make sure everyone has due process, including legal representation. Since this is a relatively small group, we can provide them legal support and due process, but we do believe most funds should be spent on direct service. We already have lots of care coordination entities, so what is the problem? The problem is that Colorado allows providers to pick and choose who they serve, including safety net providers, and we have allowed state agencies and their contractors to throw up their hands and say we can't find any place. We must put this to a stop because we can no longer afford it. We agree with the providers who testify today that there must be a single point of accountability. We encourage further dialogue on this bill, particularly with Bridges, with ARC chapters, and with the Office of Public Guardianship and Disability Law Colorado, who have the most direct expertise working with these populations. We know better solutions are available for this decades-all problem and are happy to contribute where we can. Thank you. All right, thank you. Now we'll go to questions. Committee questions for any witness. Seeing none, thank you all for testifying with us. Ms. Riskin, thanks for being online. Okay, signed up in a neutral position remotely was Kate Rawlinson. R-A-W-L-I-N-S-O-N. Okay. All right, before we get to witnesses who indicated questions only, anyone else in the room wanting to speak to 149, any position who's not yet had a chance to do so? Okay, please come up. So four against, amend, neutral, indifference. Any position is fine. All right, we'll start in the room, then we'll go online. Ma'am, thanks for being patient. Please go ahead. Good afternoon. Please check the mic. There's a gray button on the stand. There we go. Good afternoon. My name is Cynthia Anderson Abel. I am here on behalf of my mom, Barbara, who is here in the chamber, and Yvette Edmonds, who could not be here today. Both were victims of Solomon Galligan in 2021 My mom and Yvette asked that I show you photos of them They want you to look closely at the photos and consider them and all the victims when making a decision on this legislation. These photos were taken after they found themselves face-to-face with Galligan, who came out of nowhere and beat them in the face, seriously injuring them not only physically, but mentally. These assaults could have been prevented. Were there proper resources? But sadly, there were not. At the time the assaults occurred, Galligan had been granted out-of-custody restoration and was free to roam the community. Galligan was declared incompetent in 2022 and 2023, and seven assault cases filed throughout the state were dismissed. Victims were told that Galligan would be committed to a mental health care facility and would get proper care. That did not happen. Galligan was released back out into the community in late 2023. Within a few months, Galligan assaulted someone again. Galligan was supposed to appear for mental health care on April 16th of 2024, but did not show up for reasons unknown. On April 19th, Galligan showed up at a schoolyard in Aurora, where he victimized a group of children and an entire community. Again, had there been proper resources, had Galligan been kept in a proper facility, this would not have happened. As victims, we implore you to pass SB 26149 into law. It is the beginning of a long process that we hope will ensure that defendants get proper care, that victims get some degree of justice and that the public can be safe in the community. I thank you for allowing the victims the opportunity to be heard here today. And again, I want to recognize my mom and Yvette and all victims and say what happened to you matters. And I hope that legislators recognize that and they take the appropriate action. Thank you. Thank you. Sir, please go ahead. Good afternoon. My name is Marcus Berman. Please check the microphone, sir. I'm sorry. Gray button. Good afternoon. My name is Marcus Berman. My father was victim to a senseless murder October 13th of 2019. It was one of the murders that was mentioned earlier. he did a lot for the Denver community. He lived here in Denver. He moved here to Colorado in the early 2000s and really made a name for himself. So when his life was taken, it had a very big impact on, for lack of better terms, the biker community. What happened was it was unjust. This is the first time that my dad's voice is really heard today. I am his victim's advocate. So on behalf of all of the other victims and to prevent future incidences, like these, I would like to ask that you guys push this forward. And before I'm done, I would like to ask you one question, and it's the same question that I asked the judge that dismissed my dad's murder case. if if you dismiss this does that make you an accomplice? Thank you. All right. Thank you. If you'll both hold, we'll hear from our online witness. Then we'll see if there are questions. Ms. Rawlinson, please go ahead. Thank you, Chair and members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Excuse me. My name is Kate Rawlinson. I'm testifying in partial support of HB 26149, hoping that the amendments that have been offered by Bridges and Disability Law Colorado, Colorado, Mental Health Colorado, and some of the healthcare organizations will be given serious consideration to fix some of the worrisome flaws of this bill. I'm the founder and lead of of Colorado Mad Moms, a coalition of 400 caregivers and the mother of a 33-year-old man who developed a no-fault brain illness in his late teens, resulting in a lifelong disability. He was a talented musician, had an IQ of 130, and told me, Mom, I'm losing myself, as his condition worsened. I also want to say I am here in support, and Colorado Mad Moms supports the victims of crimes of people with serious mental illness. We are about 140,000 caregivers across the state of Colorado, and violence does occur. And so I think we probably outnumber you, but we feel strongly that we are here in support of you also. So eight years ago, my son went off his medications, which made him feel, as he said, like a zombie. He had been with his father in Miami and came back to Colorado to live with me. I attempted to get him back on his meds, but because he'd been gone for a year, his mental health provider required he go through a readmission process a week later. They would not budge. Four days later, he accessed a gun and attempted to murder my partner. He was not a monster, as many people think our ill loved ones are. He was experiencing command hallucinations, and he believed my partner was going to harm me. Although not true, he decided he had to protect me. Fortunately, the gun did not fire when he pulled the trigger. After six months in jail on meds, he received a two-year deferred sentence and probation. He's been in meaningful recovery for four years. He works part-time, drives his own truck, pays his own taxes, manages his own meds. He lost 10 years of his life to schizophrenia. I found the right medication for my son, clozapine, which not one medical professional here in Colorado or other states had ever mentioned. A year later, my son apologized to the man he almost killed and thanked him for forgiving him. He no longer has anisinosia. He is aware that he has a neurodegenerative brain disorder and must stay on his meds. No one wants to release dangerous felons to wander the streets just because they are mentally ill or have IDD or a TBI We are glad these individuals may get the care they deserve through protective placement However writing legislation that fixes things without addressing the root problem is irresponsible Not all people with SMI are violent, but they may be incompetent to stand trial for potential actions while psychotic and deserve a civil bed to receive treatment. Filling those beds with the most violent removes beds for our family members potentially. The real problem, sorry I'm going over, Colorado's mental health system does not have the capacity needed in higher levels of care. Inpatient hospitals, locked residential or long-term nursing care homes for the most severely mentally ill and others who are gravely disabled and cannot care for themselves. Without more beds and Colorado is at 20% of what our population currently requires, according to the Treatment Advocacy Center. The need for treatment will continue to escalate to the level of felony convictions and even murder. Earlier intervention with quality wraparound treatment by competent medical professionals would shift the dollars spent on the criminalization of our family members and lead to helping very ill Colorado citizens be treated humanely. It's time for you, the governor, the justice and law enforcement system, and yes, even the health care system, to shift the way you think about severe mental illness. It is possible to recover, but you must take action to create a 21st century care and support system that is humane and not punitive. Thank you very much. I welcome your questions. All right. Thank you, ma'am. Committee, questions for any of our witnesses? Seeing no questions, thank you for being with us. Thank you for being with us online, ma'am. All right. Final call for witnesses on SB 149 who have not had a chance to speak to the bill. All right. We will close the witness phase for 149. We'll invite the sponsors back. So sponsors, lots of work to do between here here, and hopefully not later than next week, but if you wanted to make any summation kind of comments, feel free. Senator Mobley. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to everybody who came and testified on the bill today. And so I think hopefully you all have a greater understanding of how complicated this policy is. And I really appreciate all the efforts of everyone involved to get the bill into a good place. And as I said before, we do have lots of amendments. And now we just need to make sure that they all work together and also that we are addressing the fiscal impact of the bill with those amendments. And I am optimistic that when we come back here on Monday, we will have satisfied most people's issues, if not everyone's. Maybe not everybody will get everything they want, but I think most people will get most of what they want. And I also just want to reiterate, because I feel like this is hard for people who have serious mental illness to be portrayed as being dangerous as a group And I just want to say one more time that most people who have illnesses like schizophrenia schizoaffective disorder and other kinds of psychosis are not dangerous They still need treatment. They need care. And they need not to be vilified and stigmatized and made to be ashamed. And so I just want to put that out there again because I know a lot of people are listening and paying attention to what we're doing here today. We are trying to solve for a very narrow circumstance in which people who have various brain disorders are violent and need to be kept safe and need to help our communities to be safe. And that's what the bill is about. And we will be back next week. Minority Leader Simpson. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thanks, committee members, and likewise, a heartfelt thank you to everybody that testified from victims and judicial branch and folks suffering or have family members suffering. It's a compelling testimony. I know there's a commitment, at least from the Senate sponsors. There is a path forward, and we'll be very diligent in the coming days to make that path forward much clearer and with a sense of urgency as well. So I appreciate the committee's attention today. Thank you. Thank you. Sponsors, I appreciate the work that you and many others have put in to bring this bill to this point. It is one of the tougher issues legally, fiscally, frankly, morally, in terms of all the impacts that it has on people, as we've heard a little bit about today. And personally, I'm optimistic there is a path forward, and you are two of the best people, I think, to just go to work on a tough issue in the Senate. So thanks for your engagement, and we'll expect to resume this matter in the committee next week. With that, 149 is laid over. We have a number of bills in front of us. I will put the committee into a brief recess. If you're here for 149 and would like to be on your way, feel free to leave. Thank you again for your engagement in this matter. if you are here for 36 and subsequent bills. We will resume with that momentarily. Judiciary is in a brief recess. Thank you. Thank you Thank you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Jensen. We are now on to Senate Bill 36 by Senators Gonzalez and Weissman, who are before us. Who would like to begin? Senator Gonzalez. Thank you, Mr. Chair, committee members. It is a joy to bring forward for your consideration, once again, Senate Bill 36. and you all are in receipt, I believe, of L-001, which is the strike below amendment, and we will be speaking to that today. I will just say briefly that we have been hard at work, and when I say we, I mean mostly the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee has been hard at work, and I tag along and try and support him best I can in these ongoing conversations that we've been having with stakeholders and with the stakeholder that has his office on the first floor of this august building and trying to really discern how do we address the prison population and its management in an effective way that prioritizes both safety and our budget. And so I think this, I'll just say that L1 and the additional amendments that we'll speak to when the time comes, 2 and 3, represent our best effort to try to balance those two important priorities, our budget and our public safety. And so with that, looking forward to the conversation ahead, and I'll turn it over to my co-prem sponsor. Senator Weissman. Thanks, Mr. Chair and committee. You know, you'll note it's April here. Somebody in the hall just told me we're on day 90. That means there are 30 left. And yet here we are with SB 036 having been introduced quite early in the session and coming up only now and you might be wondering why Senator Gonzalez spoke to that We have been negotiating intensively We both agreed actually it was Senator Gonzalez work to undertake this before session started. I joined later in time. We believe it's an important conversation to have around here. I am now old enough I go back to the original PPMM bill. I was in the House in 18 when that went on the books. not long after session started I think the exigency of our prison capacity situation or conditions became more and more manifest to us I think we've all heard something about this in the press talking with our budget committee members we briefly were considering somehow mobilizing $150 or $200 million to buy a whole new prison and if you are reflecting on the risk that was narrowly avoided to the senior homestead exemption or risks that were not avoided to various folks who were dependent on services provided by HICPF, you might be sitting uncomfortably with that. I know I certainly have been. So then this bill took on, I think, a whole other kind of gloss. We began to negotiate intensively with representatives from the first floor and others. The folks who work in DOC care about these questions. Their representatives have had input here, too. I want to appreciate at the outset our drafter, Ms. Ross, who had a lot coming at her over the weeks and months on this bill, and also Mr. Carpenter for his fiscal analysis of a pretty intricate piece of policy. At the bottom of it, carceral capacity is a scarce resource, and it is a very expensive one. This committee heard, I think, in our SMART Act early in January, the all-in capital cost of building new prison beds is anywhere from $350,000 to $600,000 per bed, depending on custody level. To build minimum is going to be less expensive. than to build level five security, but I don't think anybody would call 350K per bed cheap when the state is already broke or worse. So the point of PPMM from 2018, I think, was always how in conditions of capacity crunch or even capacity crisis do we make the best use of that capacity with an eye to public safety. That's the spirit in which 36, as amended, comes forward. I will speak a little bit to L1, the strike below, and we have 2 and 3, which are amendments to 1, which reflect further ongoing discussions, even after we finalized L1 and let it be fiscal and thereafter distributed. Walking through quickly and happy to take questions. Bottom of page 1, after alleged deck, we start on provisions that are essentially in the way of notification. We have a lot of different actors in the criminal justice system who have some quantum of discretion in decisions that they make. At the very least, we want them to know that PPMM has triggered on bottom of page two. We go into what happens when we're able to achieve enough slack in the system to trigger off. Top of page three, under sub two of the whole section, 119.7, we get into these substantive measures and some modifications to them Part of paragraph 1A at the top of 3 will be struck by amendment in L2 We identified we thought we were asking for something relatively simple there What we learned in fiscal is that asking for data in that forward way would require hundreds of thousands of dollars of IT system work at DPS. We don't want to climb over that here. Depending on where the budget lands, there's a pretty good size, a probe in there that may go a lot of the way to addressing this, so maybe we'll find ourselves in the situation where we can come back at this small point in paragraph 1A in the future. At any rate, we're not going to do it here. The rest of page 3 continues to set forward some conditions or duties that system actors, for example, in community corrections, DOC case managers, parole board staff have when we are in these PPMM conditions. At the top of page four, we are going to amend those provisions out and mostly walk that section back to existing law.

Committee, any questions for the bill's sponsors?

Senator Weissman?

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, and thank you for your time. My name is Kyle Giddings. I'm the Deputy Director at the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition, and I'm here to urge a yes vote on Senate Bill 2636. Colorado is at a turning point in how we manage our prison system. Right now, the Department of Corrections is asking for significant new investments, reopening beds, increasing payments to private prisons, and setting the stage for a long-term expansion. At the same time, we know the system lacks clear planning and transparency around how those resources are used. This bill starts to address that gap. Colorado already has a prison population management bill. bill. It passed unanimously because lawmakers understood that when prisons approach capacity, the state needs a structured response. But when the law was triggered last year, it did not meaningfully reduce the population, and there was little viability into what actions were taken, or visibility, excuse me, on what actions were taken and why. Senate Bill 36 makes that law work as intended. It requires clear reporting, sets timelines for action, and improves coordinated actions across the entire system. This is about responsible system management. Without tools like this, the default becomes expansion, and expansion is the most expensive option available to the state. It locks us into long-term costs without addressing the underlying issues, how we manage the population and what we already have. Senate Bill 36 gives Colorado a way to act early, plan better, and avoid crisis-driven decisions. It strengthens accountability, supports safe operations, and helps ensure that policy, not pressure, drives how we respond to capacity challenges. I ask for your yes vote. Thank you.

Thank you. Members of the committee, my name is Maureen Kane. I'm an attorney, and I'm working with the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition. And when we started to look at the fact that the current PPMM wasn't working, the first thing we did was, what's going on in other states? How do they manage this problem? Are other people doing statutes or whatever? And that was my job. So I figured out that at least Arkansas, Mississippi, Kentucky, Michigan, Florida, Utah, Arizona, and Kansas has a very special way of doing it. through a commission, have prison population management tools. And most of the time, they're called emergency measures. And the percentages vary. Some states are 100% of bed capacity. Some states were at 95. Some were at 96.5. But everybody recognized the same thing. When you get overcrowded, it's a safety risk, not just for the inmates but for the staff And that why the staff are so concerned about the overcrowding and dealing with that So this is a public safety bill, and this is what this is about. And so the second thing that was really important to us was it wasn't a problem just for the DOC to solve or just for the governor to solve, that all of us are involved in this process. And that's why there are notifications to everybody, because everybody may have a little bit that they can help. So the notification provisions are very clear, and everybody needs to acknowledge. So community corrections is the first one we have, and they have a job to do of counting beds, seeing if they can find more beds, moving some people who have met criteria. DOC has a responsibility to put lists together for the parole board. Case managers need to be on top of it, because what I would say is this is an all-hands-on-deck bill, trying to get people who already have a job to do to do it within a certain period of time. Then the department needs to send lists to the parole board. The parole board is not required to release anybody. The parole board still looks at people, but there are people that have been granted parole if they do certain things. We go back and look at them again. So it's just asking everybody, we're in a crisis, can we move quickly? I think the public defenders have a job, the judges have a job, and I think perhaps the most important thing is we have a statutory duty to both the parole board and the executive director of the department to actually pay attention to population, not just in terms of asking for more beds, but in operations. And so for those reasons, we ask you to support the bill. Thank you.

I could go.

Yeah, good afternoon. My name is Josef Lopez. I'm the vice president of the human services programs at Servicios de la Raza. I'm here speaking on behalf of Servicios, as well as Servicios Sigue, which is our C4 arm and in strong support of Senate Bill 36. S.B. 36. S.B. 36. S.B. 36 is a 54-year-old nonprofit organization whose mission statement is to promote, to provide and advocate for culturally responsive essential human services and opportunities. S.B. 36 has been a wages DOC community partner providing reentry services for over 10 years. And S.B. 36 is a proud member of the No More Prisons Coalition. What our state does not need are more prisons or more prison beds. SB 36 calls for greater responsible prison management, which is sadly lacking, and fiscal accountability as well. Crime in Colorado is on the decline, as is the number of felony convictions. It defies logic that in this scenario we would even consider more prison beds. Instead, this bill wisely asks that we look internally at the bottleneck within DOC that keeps people in prison, rather than help those that have done their time get released smoothly with assistance to succeed out of prison. The prison management elements of this bill make sense. We need accountability and transparency on those that are eligible for release and why they remain behind bars. With simple technical violations, something as simple as missing an appointment or violating a curfew, one can be sent back to prison even if the offense is non-violent and the individual poses zero safety risk. You've heard this before. We are cutting the very services that keep people out of prison. We should be investing more in our schools, in crime prevention, and in support for those renting our communities after incarceration. The growth of our prison population is not inevitable. It is the result of policy choices. You have before you a clear opportunity to choose a different path. Let's fix what's broken. I urge you to vote yes on SB 36.

Good afternoon, chairs and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify in support of Senate Bill 36. My name is Leo Janez, and I'm here on behalf of Healthier Colorado. A healthy life begins with access to basic needs, such as safe housing, nutritious food, quality health care, and strong, thriving communities. When people lack access to these basic needs, they are more likely to engage in survival behaviors, such as theft or seeking support in unsafe environments. ultimately pushing them toward involvement in the juvenile or criminal justice system. As you all know, with the Senate debating the budget this week, Colorado is dealing with a $1.5 billion deficit. The JBC was forced to make extremely challenging decisions that will affect thousands of Coloradans. For example, across the board cuts to Medicaid reimbursement rates, rolling back community-based services for children and adults with disabilities, reducing funding for substance use programs, and limiting child care support. Yet, as we are making these devastating cuts, we continue to allocate resources that we do not have toward incarceration. Rather than pursuing costly and unnecessary prison expansion, we should address the root causes driving prison population growth. Senate Bill 36 offers a meaningful opportunity to support those who are already on a path to get back into their communities. This bill supports reentry for individuals who have served their sentences and are eligible for parole, helping them successfully transition out of incarceration and reducing overcrowding in Colorado's prisons. The best way to prevent crime is by investing in child care, education, employment pathways, and other evidence-based services that improve health outcomes across our state. We need to shift our resources toward prevention and care rather than prison expansion. As correctional costs continue to rise, they consume public dollars that could otherwise support access to health care, child care, and other vital services that strengthen the future of Colorado's communities. I'd like to respectfully ask each of you to vote yes on this bill and to please support Senate Bill 36. Thank you for your time.

Yes, can you hear me now?

All right. Good evening, Chairperson and members of the committee. My name is Dr. Thomas Mays. I'm a Denver native and ordained elder and pastor, licensed and privileged to minister in Colorado for the last 49 years. Today I testifying on behalf of the Interfaith Alliance of Colorado but also I the president of the Aurora branch of the NAACP and first vice president for the NAACP for Colorado Wyoming and Montana I the CEO for Escape Everyone Sharing Child Abuse Prevention Education and training tomorrow leaders today So I thank you for allowing me to show my support for SB 2636 We share a season where transparency is a priority for all stakeholders in our community. That transparency includes the DOC and work for rehabilitation of anyone that really demonstrates remorse and a desire to make a better life decisions. I agree and support SB 36 because I believe it ensures that the entire body of justice is made aware when the system hits a bottleneck or approaches a breaking point. So we all know the elements of this bill as well as it's overdue and it's an overdue need in the DOC. This also makes funds available for Coloradans most need for schools, health care, and housing rather than prison expansion. In the book of 3 John in our Bible, the first chapter of the second verse says, and that's what I rely on, Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as your soul prospers. 36 provides an opportunity for health, prosperity, for all of those in the penal institutions, and it allows for oversight as well as corrective and proactive measures that are much needed. Furthermore, this bill brings the element of humanity in that somehow has been lost grip of by many people. The same Bible that I and our forefathers rely on insists on the humanity found in Matthew 25 and 36. I was in prison, and you visited me. Today, that visit must take the form of systemic oversight. I so much appreciate the opportunity you kindly have given me for testimony on bills like this and many others. I must remind those that I come in contact daily, as I remind you today, that we're all created equal. We all make mistakes and none of us are perfect, but we share an obligation to ensure opportunity to undo our mistakes. As I stated before, I've been around a while, and I've seen a lot of things. And as Paul, the greatest missionary ever, said to us, I've been young, now I'm old, yet I've not seen the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging bread. So I conclude and make it clear. I support Senate Bill 2636 with all my heart, and I thank you for your time and opportunity to speak to your humanity. I urge each of you to vote yes on

I have, I think, two questions, maybe for Ms. Cain, but for whoever would like to answer. So on page 7 of the strike below starting at line 15, it allows the parole board to may release an inmate who is not serving a sentence enumerated in the VRA or unlawful sexual conduct 90 days in advance of the inmate's current PED. Is that something that other states do? It's just kind of like an automatic 90 days? or do you know where that came from?

And then my other question is also further down on page 7. It says that if the prison vacancy rate falls below 4% for 30 consecutive days, then it says all the requirements about who needs to be notified. For your former employer, I think, the Office of the State Public Defender, It requires, I think, all public defenders who are representing any of these individuals to utilize available resources to investigate and advocate for an alternative to a prison sentence if lawfully available for cases pending sentencing or resentencing. And then it also puts the same requirement on alternate defense counsel. Isn't that what PDs already do? One. And two, this seems like it could potentially drive a fiscal note. Are we going to see the Office of the Public Defender or the Alternate Defense Council back here next year requesting more attorneys and more investigators and more resources to fulfill these provisions?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think that is something the attorneys always try to do, is to find alternatives to a prison sentence. but this is just statutorily making it clear that, again, maybe you need to up your game a little and work on it and raise that issue to the court in sentencing or resentencing. So I don't anticipate. I don't think the public defenders put a fiscal note on it, but I did not look at that. Sorry.

Yes.

No.

Yes.

Yes.

Aye

Respectfully no

Yes

No

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, members of committee. Always great to be here in front of judiciary. Happy to be here to present Senate Bill 158 today. Senate Bill 158, I think in some ways, is a very simple bill, which is that previous changes in creation of the JCAP program did not foresee a situation that has happened since it has been launched, which is individuals who have been recommended as individuals who the governor should make eligible for release, or I'm sure should grant the release of, who the governor's office simply does not act on. And so what Senate Bill 158 does is it sets a clock where the governor has 60 days to approve or deny an application. Over the last two years, the governor has failed to approve many parole applications who have been deemed eligible to release. And so this states that after that 60-day period, the board's decision who makes that recommendation will automatically become final. Sorry about that.

Thank you. Committee, I thought I would sort of zoom out because some time has passed since the mechanism we have here, first one on the books to sort of situate it for us. There was a U.S. Supreme Court case in the mid-2010s called Miller v. Alabama that invalidated on constitutional grounds JLWOP, or Juvenile Life Without Parole, sentences. Following that, the legislature at the time passed two related measures, SB 16-180 and SB 16-181. That was the year before I actually came in here. One of those measures provided for a kind of resentencing for folks then inside, identified by the fiscal note, at the time to be somewhere between 40 and 50, if memory serves. And then we set up what was initially the J-CAP program to provide an intensive sort of program that could lead to a parole disposition for folks. in 21, then Rep Doherty was part of expanding it to JYA CAP, or Juveniles and Young Adults Sentenced as Adults. The initial program was for folks sentenced under 18, juveniles in the legal sense, then we added 18 up through 21 to the program in the 2021 bill. Most about how that works, what offenses are eligible in terms of ever to enter into the program or screened out, namely life without the possibility of parole, we're not changing that. This is a narrow thing all the way at the back end of the process where folks have gone into the program, they have completed what they need to do, completed what the law has expected of them, and there's kind of just this final stage of needing a decision to be made so that they can either parole out or not. We have an amendment L1 which I think is getting distributed to clarify just a little bit more the applicable language here. We'll have some witnesses and we'd ask for your support.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Members of the committee, my name is Maureen Cain. I'm here on behalf of Spiro Justice and myself, having been involved in this issue of juveniles convicted as adult programs since 2014. But I want to take you back a little further than that, and that's back to House Bill 90-1327. This was a bipartisan bill that passed in 1990. And ironically, the title of the bill is A Plan to Address Problems Related to the Criminal Justice System and in connection therewith, Implementing Measures to Reduce Prison Overcrowding. It was a very long bill. It included the building of a number of prisons, but it also added what was in this bill in 2016, Section 17, 22.5, 403, Paragraph 4. And in 1990, the legislature said the governor may grant early parole if there are extreme mitigating circumstances and releases compatible with the safety and welfare of society. So that was a provision that was added in 1990 but was never acted on. In 2014, when Miller v. Alabama was decided by the United States Supreme Court, and we had 40 juveniles who were serving juvenile life without parole, there was a discussion about what we were going to do to address Miller, but also what was the best way to release people and how to do it worthwhile. And that discussion went on with Tom Clements and eventually after his death with Rick Ramish, the executive director. And we met with Governor Hickenlooper's staff and his legal staff, which recommended that we rely on this provision in Title 17 to create a program that after decades in prison, some serving 20 years, some serving 25 years, some serving 30 years, before they would be eligible for the program, to allow for the governor to grant early parole. And so the law passed and then no one was released for at least five years because the program took years to develop and three years for people to complete it And then Governor Polis released some I think 15 have been released over the period of 10 years And the governor felt like that process developed in 1990 wasn the best balance So this bill is designed to address that balance and say there a recommendation from the parole board to go to the governor. The governor can just say no. The governor will say, I'm not granting parole. This isn't a case for parole. I have the opportunity. That's a final decision, even if the parole board recommends parole. The governor can grant parole if it's recommended, or the governor can say, I think the parole board is the better decision maker here because I don't know enough. And so therefore, after 60 days, it reverts to the decision of the parole board, which can be yes or can be no. And so this is a process bill. There is one program change that I think is important, and it relates to victims. and that is in my conversation with a lot of people who are released the idea of dealing with the trauma of victims is not part of the program and it needs to be part of the program and people also need to deal with their own trauma so when they're released they can set the right boundaries for family members who may still be gang related or maybe still be involved in drugs and alcohol so So there is that one addition to mandatory part of the program, which should be developed within, I think it's January 2027. So thank you. Sorry I went over time.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. Once again, my name is Adrienne Sanchez. I'm the Director of Policy and Legislative Affairs for the Colorado Department of Corrections. and I'm here today on behalf of the Department of Corrections to express our support for Senate Bill 26158. This legislation is the direct result of reflection following the implementation of the Specialized Program for Youthful Offenders over the past several years. Now that we've seen individuals successfully complete this program and apply for early release, we have a much clearer understanding of how the process works in practice and where it can be improved. I want to be clear. We are not asking for broad operational changes to our facilities or the program. Instead, this bill is about process improvements in the decision-making pipeline for the JCAP program. The primary goal is to streamline the review process once an individual has done the hard work of completing the program. Currently, applicants, victims, and stakeholders have noted a lack of predictability regarding the timing of final decisions. This bill provides much-needed clarity by establishing a 60-day timeline for the governor to act on a parole board recommendation. The parole board recommendation itself is confidential, and it could be recommending that the governor grant or deny the early parole. But if that timeline is not met, the board's recommendation becomes the final decision. This ensures that the momentum of rehabilitation is not lost to procedural delays. The only programmatic change is one that the department fully supports, the addition of a curriculum requirement focused on victim impact programming and reflection on an offender's own trauma. We believe this is a critical component for successful reintegration. Senable 26-158 honors the original intent of our Youthful Offender Specialized Program by ensuring the path to a decision is clear, timely, and focused on rehabilitation. It provides victims and applicants with the transparency they deserve regarding the when and the how of the final decision. We urge your support for this measured and necessary update. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. While I don't have a specific frequency, I can tell you that the governor does have some pinning applications on his desk and may receive more before this bill makes its way through the process.

At this time, the point of the modifications is to provide at least some certainty in terms of the timeline that a victim can expect so that they know where the decision may be coming one way or the other. The governor's office does undertake an extensive review, and the due diligence process is very similar to the clemency process. And so, if the governor has not issued any decision on any pending applications, if and when the bill passes, all of the individuals, any that may be currently pending, would fall under this process. And then going forward, we're hoping that this streamlines the process and

having a governor sign off on this in the first place? It seems like, obviously, the parole board is going to be more intimately aware with the specific case as well as the more objective conditions for somebody to be successful upon release. Was the governor's sign-off kind of a political compromise, or was there a policy reason for that?

The original bill in 2016 had the person who successfully completed the program prepare a packet that went to the parole board. And my understanding of the process is the parole board does a one-on-one interview, sometimes at least an hour, sometimes more, and then it goes to the full board, and then it goes to the governor. The reason that it went to the governor was because we already had Title 17, 22.5, that said the governor can grant early parole. And that's what the legal counsel at the time, Jackie Cooper Melmed, recommended as the process. And so that's the process that was engaged. So the governor signed off. That came from the 1990 bill. No, that came from, yeah, he signed off on the Title 17 provision in the 1990 bill. So that had never been used. and now 10 years later, I think they just think a better process would be, Governor, you can say yes or no, but if the parole board who has spent more time has the governor doesn't decide and doesn't give clarity, then it's their recommendation, which can be up or down.

Thank you. I move L-1 to 158.

Credit where it's due, the eagle-eyed rep, Espinoza, suggested that a tweak to the language at the top of five might better clarify application to existing circumstances. So that's the first part of the amendment. And then you heard reference to the new programming. We realized we should give that a little bit of time to get stood up at the department. So we would start that or direct the department to have that available as of 1-1 of 27. That's the last two lines of the amendment. I ask for your support on L1.

Senator Ball. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you, members of the committee. Senator Roberts, just wanted to follow up on the question that you had asked with some data that is from January, so I assume this is about accurate. Since 2017, 112 prisoners have applied to be in the JYA cap program, and 44 have been accepted. Before 2023, 17 of those had been released with approval of the governor, and I'll just note that none of those 17 have had any subsequent parole violations. After 2017, there have been 11 who made it to the program who have been basically in this limbo. So that's the sort of immediate number that this bill would impact is those 11 individuals, although obviously it would have an ongoing impact as well. Thank you.

Thank you. I appreciate Senator Ball always having some data to inform a conversation. The bottom line of that is we're not talking about very big numbers. If you take that entire 112, which to the point of the data, we're actually not taking that entire 112, that's well under a percent of the entire present DOC population. So we are talking about a program that was never meant to be very broadly applicable. It is really important for those to whom it affords an earned path out. There are a lot of barriers to getting in. it is not meant to be easy or quick to complete. Again, there are folks who can't ever get in if they're in on, if they went in on a post-18 life sentence, there are other kinds of exclusions. But again, it's these two things we have to hold true at the same time. People can do really terrible things and people can change. This is a program to try to recognize when people have changed. And it is fundamentally a process bill. The governor can say yes or no. The parole board can say yes or no. We're not changing the factors that lead to the evaluation and the answer whether yes or no. We are just trying to make the mechanism work in a more predictable way so that everybody involved can have a bit more certainty than they do now about how it goes. So I encourage the committee's support, and I move 158 as amended to the committee of the whole and ask for a yes vote.

No.

Yes.

Yes.

Aye.

No.

Yes.

Thank you. And again, Senator Gonzalez was conflicted on time, unfortunately, but I want to acknowledge that we've both been in a lot of the conversations that have led to this. So we talked about how 36 had come out of intensive negotiations with the executive branch. So too has 159. You heard a reference previously that time should be earned was the expressed philosophy of Ms. Sanchez from the DOC. That is very squarely what 159 is about. We have an existing statute for earned time. We seek to make some pretty modest changes to it. Mr. Chair, if it's okay, I will speak to the amended approach. Everybody should have L2. you'll see that L2 is actually striking a lot of the introduced bill and setting forth some different kinds of changes. Frankly, it makes for a simpler read-through. Right now, I'll try to describe buckets and then how the bill as amended would modify those. The baseline, if you comply with all of the conditions that are set forth, you can see those on page two, somebody could earn up to 10 days per month. As amended, we're not changing that universe. We then have a subset of offenses, lower level classifications, which presently are eligible for up to 12 days a month instead of 10. And then there are some exclusions from that bucket of 12, if you will, that cause them to fall back to 10. As amended relative to that structure, what we're proposing is that for proper behavior, instead of earning at a rate of 12 days a month, somebody with a lower offense classification could earn up to 14. And then in the list of offenses that are excluded from that, instead of falling back to 10, you would fall back from 14 to 12. and outside of those listed offenses were staying at 10. The latter parts of the bill, basically subsection 9 on page 6 and the later subsections going into 10 are not impacted by the amendment. This is a different kind of earn time trying to acknowledge things like contributing to safety in the correctional environment, completing programs and so forth. And then because of the situation we are in, the capacity crunch, is really a long-term problem. We didn't get here in a year. I don't think anybody thinks we're going to get out of here in a year. In sub-10 of the bill, starting at page seven, near the bottom and going to the end, we create a kind of work group, the structure and charge of which we've negotiated with the first floor to just come together and try to talk in a more structured way about DOC sort of management and capacity issues You see the charge on page 8 the membership spanning page 9 You've probably seen a lot of work groups, task forces, subcommittees get stood up like this. We're trying to have a diversity of perspectives and distributing the appointing authorities over majority and minority leadership from both chambers. and others. We have an interim report due end of this year, so maybe there's something to inform legislation next year, and we've set a termination point basically the end of the fiscal year, June 30, 2028, so there will be two full sessions for the legislature after this one to see how things are going. I want to note on page 9 there is an ability for the judiciary committees to send some things in writing that we would all like the group to consider. They're charged to get input as well, but we think that's a decent amount of time for us to interact with it. It can then be allowed to expire if we think the work is really done. And theoretically, our future selves could come back and continue it as well. So again, this is as much a part of our negotiations with the executive branch as to our present capacity issue as the amended version of 36, asking for the committee's support for that reason. Closing thought, any correctional administrator will tell you that they need to have some incentives in their tool belt to motivate good behavior inside. Again, we call up the Department of Corrections. We want there to be some correcting going on. The earned time statute is a lot of that mechanism. It tries to offer something very real, which is getting out on parole a little bit sooner in exchange for what we want, which is good behavior and course completion inside. As amended, 159 sharpens that incentive just a little bit for some folks. Happy to take questions.

are those exempted from that? Yeah, sorry for the confusion. that there is a big move from the introduced to the amended, and we've been moving pretty quick here at the end of session, and things just got a little bit maybe confused and confusing between us as legislative sponsors, DOC drafting. It may be helpful to look at the entirety of sub 1.5 on page, starting at page 4, going over to page 5 of the introduced. That states the present state of 1.5. We were going to strike it, and there was a lot of moving stuff around. As amended, we're leaving that intact with some amendments. So just for what we're talking about, that may help. The way that that works is those lower-level offenses right now get 12 days, and then if you look at Roman 4 at the top of 5 of the introduced, That stating who carved out and is not going to get 12 but rather 10 And then in the amended version again we move the 12 to 14 That line 8 of L2 the amendment And then we make some other amendments to 1.5. And 4 is kind of relocated down below to the A.5. On line 32, you will see the carve-out of felony VRA, or really lines 31 and 32. One other thing I will note is we've essentially replicated that list of offenses. Again, it's moving just for the purposes of flow of the statutes. It's moving from 1.5A4 into a new 1.5A.5. Same list other than we are adding as an exclusion felony motor vehicle theft.

Generally? Yes, yes. I think that's very accurate with the exception that felony motor vehicle theft is not per se excluded before and now it is. So that will stay at 12. Okay.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

At the sponsor's request, yes.

Aye.

Aye.