April 20, 2026 · Judiciary · 5,124 words · 11 speakers · 75 segments
Good afternoon. The Senate Judiciary Committee will come to order on Monday, the 20th of April. Ms. Jensen, please start us off with a roll call.
Senators Carson.
Present.
Doherty.
Here.
Henrickson.
Here.
Wallace.
Present.
Zamora Wilson.
Present.
Roberts.
Here.
Mr. Chair.
Here. All right. Everyone's present. We have just one bill on our agenda today. That is SB 149, which is back before us in an action-only posture. We had considerable witness testimony about this a week ago. I do want to note, in the event that anyone was listening in or here for House Bill 1123, that will be heard Wednesday. We did change that from today to Wednesday. Sometime on Friday, the official calendar update. accordingly. There were a few pages on the legislative website that for some unfortunate reason did not update. So apologize for any confusion, but we are not hearing 11-23 today. With that, we have a little bill numbered 149 and just a few amendments. So, committee, here's how we're going to proceed. We will invite the sponsors to make any comments about how we got from last week to today of a general nature and then to get into the details of amendments, this being the only bill we have today and being a hefty and important one, we're not going to time them at any phase of this. I want the sponsors to have the time that they feel they need to talk us through what they're doing, and I want members of the committee to have time to ask any questions about what all of this is going to amount to as amended, and we have other folks from nonpartisan staff and otherwise who could possibly help out if needed, but we'll start by giving the floor to the sponsors who'd like to start. Mr. Minority Leader, please go ahead.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, committee members. Good to be back with you again from last week. I'm going to try to give you kind of a high-level overview of where we're at today and then let Senator Mobley really dig in and give some more detail about the package of, small package of just seven amendments for your consideration today. And keeping in mind, again, this conversation about really trying to shrink this gap of how we deal with folks that are incompetent to proceed and non-restorable really got kicked off last summer. The DAs and the public defenders have just put an exhaustive amount of hours in trying to come to drafting a bill for us. So that bill was introduced on March the 26th, and then Senator Mobley and I presented to you last week. And I'll take a step backwards to go. As we were constructing the bill itself, we kept the circle pretty narrow, and a small group of folks to really get to a spot if we could get Disability Law Colorado and the public defenders and the DAs in agreement, that's like a huge step forward. So we did that, and then when we had the draft bill is when we broadcast it to every other stakeholder we could think of, law enforcement and victims' rights advocates and just a whole laundry list of folks to be engaged. That then culminated, semi-culminated last week where we had dozens, three dozens probably worth of proposed amendments. And my co-sponsor and I debated about do we run amendments last week and then just keep the process going or do we take a pause, which is what we chose to do, and try to build more consensus. So over the last week, that list of amendments had reached 40 of them, and really that was the public defenders and the DAs working with, again, disability law, Colorado County attorneys, the governor's office, human services, BHA, HICPA, Bridges, the judicial department, a number of these stakeholders in this conversation, and I'll put in hospitals in this space, but I know I'm hearing today there's still some work potentially be done with hospitals. We haven't got absolute 100% consensus, but we're pretty close. To come forward today with this package of amendments that were addressing both stakeholders' concerns and then also the fiscal note. The fiscal note from the draft, from the introduced bill was unacceptable, I guess would say. We had set aside some money in the next fiscal year to cover this and exceeded it, I don't know, by fivefold or something. It was pretty extensive. So really I've been focused since that time frame of coming together to present to you this next step in this process, which I suspect there were like all these kind of in-depth policy conversations. There will be still more conversations to come, but this moves us exponentially further down the path. And with your approval today in adoption, then would send us to a propes for the next step. And we have this package of amendments to present to you today. And I'm going to let Senator Mobley kind of highlight, help you. The biggest one, Amendment No. 40, was a compilation of most of those 40 individual amendments that we had been working on over the last several weeks. So with that, I think I'm going to have Senator Amabile dig in a little deeper on the amendment package.
All right. Thank you. I hear the probes chair as a ruthless tyrant. Senator Amabile, please go ahead.
I like that for my reputation. Gosh, it's been a week. It could either have been like five minutes or it could have been like five years. People have been working really, really hard in the last week to make agreements and to try to get at the stakeholder concerns, as my co-prime just alluded to. Not everybody's happy. Most people got something. I don't know if anybody got everything that they wanted. and of course it's important to make the stakeholders happy they are the ones that have to implement the bill they're the ones that are impacted by it but also we do have this overarching goal of making sure that people who need care get into care and that public safety is addressed in a very comprehensive way and so we don't want to let go of the bigger picture on this, and I don't think any of you want us to either. So I would love to have someone move Amendment 40.
Mr. Vice Chair. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move Amendment L40.
Properly moved. All right.
So, and sponsors, I want to confirm everyone has access. Everyone should have got hard copy on the floor, and we were emailed as well. this amendment exceeds the length of many a bill in the legislature so however you'd like to walk us through it Senators so I'll say a lot of it is clean up and it is in response to different stakeholders and it was in a bunch of independent amendments which I believe got shared so I was going to just go through sort of the highlights and then if you have questions we can go back and if there's questions that we can't answer we have people here that will come up and answer your questions, but also don't feel like you have to ask any questions. Not a requirement. So the first big thing is on page three, line 16 through 31. This allows for there to not be a trial if all the parties are in agreement. And that's important because it saves money, but also it's an unnecessary step if actually you do have agreement and the court stipulates that a civil commitment or enhanced placement is in order and the defendant agrees and everybody agrees, then that will happen without having to have a trial. So on page four, starting with line eight, what this is is a repeal, a five-year repeal. So on the enhanced protective placement. And it also includes a SMART Act hearing. And this was, there were actually a number of stakeholders who thought this was an important thing to add. and disability law, this was one of their important asks. And I think it's a good addition to the bill because if we are not, if we didn't get it right, then we shouldn't let it go on. And this forces us to take another look. And there is a data component to this too, so we will have some information in front of us at this SMART Act hearing to ascertain whether we got it right or not and so that what that is On page five at the top of the page this is really just moving this section into its own section for people with neurocog and IDD The middle of the page is restoring the language for civil certification and the definition of danger to others. So we had changed that, and this is changing it back because we found there was a lot of resistance to that. And, you know, these were amendments that the hospitals wanted, that DLC wanted. And so that's just kind of going back to where we were originally in statute. And then on page 6, we are narrowing the criteria for an enhanced protective placement. And that was something that the advocates wanted and also something that has a fiscal impact on the bill. Then in the middle of this page is clarifying that an evaluation can take place in the jail. and we can't do that now. This is an evaluation even if you're not in a 2765 facility. On page 7, at the top of the page, we're clarifying the civil certification criteria and moving it to its own place. The language that starts at the bottom of page 7 and then carries through to page 8 and 9 is restoring the sections of 2765 that we tried to change. and going back to what's in current statute. And then at the bottom of page 9, starting with section 12, this is what we're replacing 2765 with. And it's something that the county attorneys wanted. But this is basically the pathway to outpatient certification. and says you can skip the ER if you are going to be certified as an outpatient. And that also saves money and makes sense. And then so all the way through page 11, this is all about the outpatient certification process. And then we get to page 13 at the top of the page. This is requiring a second opinion. to terminate a certification. Because it has been a little bit of a problem that people are, one person opines that somebody should be terminated from a certification and that's all it takes and that hasn't always been good, to say it mildly. Then the rest of this, like down at the bottom, It says here that if the county attorney, because they don't deal with criminal matters, doesn't want to or doesn't act to comply with the Victims' Rights Act, then the DAs can take over that Victim Rights Act responsibility. And then, starting with Part 2 on the very bottom of page 13, is this is the dangerous pathway. This is the big mission of the bill. It's putting unrestorable people into their own part. This is the 25 to 50 people per year that the bill was intended to talk about and creating a pathway for civil commitment. And that's not new, right? That's just moving. Okay, thank you. And this is moving this pathway into its own section. It was in the introduced version of the bill, but it wasn't in current statute. And then when we get to page 19, we're talking about people with SMI. And that is 19-20-21. and that's different than people who have IDD or people who have a neurocog disorder. And on page 23, this is a rewrite of the protective placement for neurocog. And this is dealing with this language around what is inpatient and we shrank the scope and that helped us with the fiscal note. and made some people happy and made some people sad. And that's how we know we did a good job. And then on page 27, the big thing there is this second opinion to terminate somebody from one of these protective placements. And then at the bottom, on line 29, this is for the enhanced protective placement. So these are the people who have committed these high-level crimes and are found to be unlikely to be restored to competency. So this is all the language about the protective placements. And then on page 30... is delivery of service for individuals with serious mental illness. And again, this is IMD waivers for nursing homes, allowing people who have a dual diagnosis to get placed in a nursing home, and improving the transitions across different settings and basically saying you can move people from one setting to another setting if that's what makes sense for them and for what they need. And then we have conforming changes, language around that, and the rest of the amendment is about conforming changes from the drafter. Thank you.
Mr. Minority Leader, did you want to say any more on 40? All right. Committee will ask if there are questions about the booklet that is L40. You've been exhaustive, Senator Amabile. All right. If there are no questions, is there any objection to the adoption of L40? Seeing none, L-40 is adopted Now, we do have some amendments that are drafted to L-40 I wasn't sure if you wanted to proceed that way, sponsors But we can be relaxed about order because it's the Senate And we have no settled question rule, so wherever you'd like to go next Okay, so we're going to go with Senate Bill I'm sorry, with Amendment 41
Mr. Vice Chair Thank you, Mr. Chair, I move L-41
Proper motion, tell us about L-41, sponsors
So this basically continues some of the changes from Amendment 39, but they're housed in the changes are happening in Amendment 40, and I know that's kind of confusing. And it'll be a little more clear when we run 39, but we're doing it this way because the drafter suggested that this would be the clearest and cleanest way to do it because this does amend L40. And so it's really just making the language clear that you're going to see in 39.
Okay. Members, questions of the sponsors about L41? Seeing no questions, is there objection to the adoption of L41? Seeing no, L41 is adopted. Sponsors, next amendment. Okay, next up we have L44.
These are literally just the drafters' amendments to L40 and just making sure that everything conforms. And these came late because they've been working to edit and revise. And so these are really just technical changes to L40. Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I move L44.
All right. Proper motion on L44. Committee questions or comments about L44? Any objection to the adoption of L44? Seeing none L44 is adopted Sponsors next amendment please L45 Mr Vice Chair Thank you Mr Chair I move L All right
Proper motion on L-45.
Sponsors.
So same thing on this. It is amendments to L-40. And something that I probably should have said earlier, but throughout the bill, we're striking OCFMH, which is the Office of Civil and Forensic Mental Health, and substituting Colorado Department of Human Services, which is where OCFMH lives. And so this was something that the executive branch wanted, and this does that conforming throughout. Thank you.
Members, any questions about L45? Seeing no questions, is there objection to the adoption of L45? Seeing no L45 is adopted. Sponsors, next amendment. Is L-39.
Mr. Vice Chair. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move L-39.
All right. Proper motion on L-39. Sponsors.
Okay. So L-39 is something that a lot of the stakeholders wanted, and it does reduce the fiscal note substantially, and it gives flexibility for operations within this system. So you can, a hospital, a regional center, a nursing home, you can be moved around without judicial review between these placements with the agreement of a professional person. And it gives this definition of inpatient care, which means it's a placement at a facility. And that's different than what we think of as inpatient or outpatient. This is a specific thing. It's at one of these facilities. And so it reduces judicial oversight for the transfers, but it still keeps the judicial oversight from termination from one of these inpatient placements. So that's the first page. And did I leave something out? No. Okay. And it narrows acts that qualify for an enhanced protective placement. So it narrows who qualifies for one of these enhanced protective placements. and that starts on page 2 and goes through 3, 4, 5 through the end. And so some of this is moving things around and some of this is putting in these new definitions. and this was really the place where the most compromised happened between the DAs and PDs and the executive branch because they need this flexibility. This is where when you saw the first fiscal note, they said, well, we have to build a new hospital because what we had before didn't allow this flexibility of getting people into the right setting. and so if everybody had to go to the state hospital then we would need a lot more beds at the state hospital but as long as we can move people in a way that makes things operate more efficiently and we are also adding placements but to be able to make all of that work that's what this is about and also the judicial reviews to narrow the scope of the judicial reviews and that also reduces the cost from the courts. And, yeah, go ahead.
All right, Mr. Minority Leader for More on 39.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just to highlight, it was about increasing flexibility and helping drive the costs down, but we did not do this at the sacrifice of community safety. It's still a priority. I think we're still confident we can accomplish both of those. Thank you.
Committee, questions on 39? See no questions. Objection to the adoption of L-39? Seeing none, 39 is adopted. All right. Next amendment, sponsors. Next up, we have amendment L-42.
Mr. Vice Chair. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move L-42.
Okay. 42 is moved as an amendment to 39.
Sponsors? And this is really a cleanup. Yeah, it's really a cleanup. So instead of saying care, we're saying care at the discretion of CDHS or HECPF or similar terminology. And, you know, it just changes a little bit of the language. And this was the ask of the executive branch just to make sure things are clear and that they can execute the plan. Yeah, and this amends L-39. Right.
All right. Committee, questions concerning L-42? Seeing no questions. Objection to the adoption of L-42. Seeing none, L-42 is adopted. All right. Sponsors, we have one more amendment, 46.
Mr. Vice Chair. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move L-46.
All right. Proper motion to 46.
Sponsors. And again, this is just a cleanup amendment, a conforming amendment that the drafter needs.
All right. Committee, questions concerning L-46? Any objection to the adoption of L-46? Seeing on L-46 is adopted. Sponsors, anything else we're doing? Just ten more. Looks like not. Committee, anybody? Did anybody have anything in your back pocket? All right, good. amendment phase is closed sponsors closing comments Mr. Minority Leader
Thank you Mr. Chair I spent so much time focusing on amendments I hadn't even thought about closing comments we've just been at this my co-prime referenced it felt like it could have been five minutes ago last week or five weeks ago so it's been exhausting and to watch the effort that went into this very important policy the drafter has just been amazing to work with fiscal analysts, to spend time with the public defenders and the DAs, a place I just don't spend much time at all, has been quite a life experience for me and knowing how important this policy is to, again, closing a gap, correcting a gap in our society and public safety. It's been an amazing experience for me, and so I appreciate my co-prime sponsor and her passion and expertise in this space. I've learned a little bit just sitting next to her every time. So I appreciate your support. I hope you can help us move this forward. Thank you.
Senator Mopile.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I'll just echo all the thanks. I mean, I think I'll just particularly shout out our drafter, Shelby Ross. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to say it by name, but I mean, I don't think we could have pulled all this together without her. And, of course, the DAs and the PDs have been amazing to work with. And I want to make sure that all of the stakeholders who maybe didn't get everything they want, I want to ensure them that we are going to continue to work on this policy and make it as good as possible. And a lot of what we did here today is about reducing the fiscal note and making sure that everything works together. And we did just get, I don't know if you all got shared on that, but a new estimate updated from earlier today, I think when you were all copied on a still very high fiscal note. And so it's not finalized yet, but it comes in really well within the set-aside that's already in the budget. And so we will be moving forward with appropriations after this. And then I'll just say what I said last time because I want people to make sure to remember that most people who have a serious mental illness or who have a neurocognitive disorder or a developmental disability are not violent. They are fine human beings, and their illness doesn't take them in that direction. But there are some people who are, and it isn't good for them if they don't get the care that they need, and it isn't good for the rest of society. And whether they have committed really horrible crimes or whether they're just out there committing petty crimes because they living on the street or they don know what they doing all of these people deserve care And this bill is aimed at the people who are committing the most serious crimes and who are the most sick. And that does require a different thing than other people. But eventually we have to get to a place where everybody gets the care and treatment that they need, and that is how we will solve this problem once and for all. And this bill isn't exactly about that, but there are some things in this bill that will make a difference for the whole ecosystem. And there are definitely things in the bill that will help us make sure that we're keeping our communities safe while also providing people with the help that they need. And so I ask for a yes vote. Thank you.
Committee, any closing comments?
Senator Carson.
And then Mr. Vice Chair.
Well, I want to thank the Senator from Boulder and the minority leader for taking on this bill. I think it does warrant some comments because I think it's probably, if not the most important bill, will pass this year, clearly one of the most important bills that will pass this year. So it's been a tremendous undertaking, and I think it's been something that's interested the public a great deal. You know, when we were discussing this last week, you know, there was mention of the 1972 Supreme Court case, Jackson v. Indiana, which really kind of set one of the principles here is that states cannot indefinitely confine criminal defendants solely on the basis of incompetence to stand trial. But the interesting thing about that case is it's very different, I think, than the kind of situations we're concerned with here. And I think this bill will address those situations. I mean, that case was a unanimous Supreme Court decision. And you can understand why it was unanimous, because the individual involved there, Theon Jackson, was deaf. He was a mute. He could not read. He was mentally deficient, and he was charged with the huge crime of stealing a woman's purse with $4 in it. So you can see why the Supreme Court would clearly say you can't indefinitely confine someone like that with no end just because they're deemed to be incompetent. But what I think we're all concerned with is the clearly different case of someone who is violent and dangerous. And under this bill, I think it does set up a very clear process where, you know, if the court deems it appropriate and all the parties involved, and the end result is that that person should be confined against their will, potentially for a very long period of time, then I think that's where we need to be if it's a violent, dangerous person. So I think there's still a little bit of a concern here, potentially, that if the court eventually determines the person's no longer a risk or maybe they're no longer incompetent, well then I presume I guess they're released at that point, which may not be encouraging to the public or to victims of violent crimes, but I think it's probably the best situation we can get to with the state of the law. So I will be voting for the bill and thank the sponsors for putting so much work into it.
Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to add to the thanks to everybody that's worked on this, to the drafter. Thank you and kudos on such an enormous task. but also in addition to the comments of the Good Center from Highlands Ranch just want to thank everybody that came together to find a way forward here. I have experience with the competency system on a professional capacity as well as a little bit of a personal capacity as well and I know how big of a challenge it is and in an age where big problems are all over the place I just want to commend everybody for coming together who sometimes can't ever come together on certain issues and for the bill sponsors for leading the charge to try to find a way forward. Thank you.
This is a tough, tough topic, not to make it cheesy, but it gives you some hope that when we have big things in front of us, we can work through them. And I know this bill still has several steps to go, but kudos to everybody for trying to solve this for our state. it is so important. Thank you. Members, any other closing comments? I'll add a few of my own. I appreciate Mr. Vice Chair's commentary on the scope. You know, I was talking about this subject with somebody else who works around this building Friday and observed, you know, I studied criminal law and criminal procedure more years ago now than I'll say in law school. competency did not come up once. The person I was talking to had been working in and around health care policy for about 10 years. Competency had not come up. Since my first exposure to this subject, which was 17, 18, I've sort of called it the saddest thing in the world that nobody knows about. We used to institutionalize to me pretty appallingly large numbers of folks in this country in conditions that were often terrible. And I think we look back on rightly in question. I think, though, we've struggled even after decades to sort of figure out, well, okay, what next? The struggles that buildings like this one, and I've been to national conferences where people grapple with competency and whatever this issue is, it is not a red or blue or purple state thing. Everybody has struggled with this issue. I do think that Supreme Court case law has been quite clear that at some point you cannot use the criminal legal system to continue to hold people. I think what the bill forces us to confront is we've grappled then with the question, what next? I will grant there are public safety issues with just letting people out. but there's also sort of human ones. We're not doing people with serious mental illness a favor if they're wandering lost in the streets. Which brings us to, I think, the challenge of balancing three things. One is public safety, and two is civil liberties. And then three is, as we build a system that tries to respond to the first two, the fact that the financial costs of providing this kind of care or the alternative confinement can run away in a shocking fashion. Hundreds of thousands of dollars per bed or daily rates that get pretty challenging for a state like in our situation. So this whole project I think has been trying to balance those three things. It has not been easy. appreciate you're both committing so much of your time to do it and trying to have a value set that will balance it. I will also add my thanks to members of our nonpartisan staff who've been involved, Mr. Carpenter and Ms. Reynolds, in particular Ms. Ross. Everything we do here turns on some degree of support for our policy goals on the part of members of nonpartisan staff and I think seldom to the extent of this bill. So thank you all. With that, motion is to appropriations, Mr. Vice-Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move Senate Bill 149 as amended to the Committee on Appropriations with a favorable recommendation.
All right. Proper motion to appropriations. Ms. Jensen, please call the roll.
Senators Carson.
Yes.
Doherty.
Yes.
Henrickson.
Yes.
Wallace.
Yes.
Samora Wilson.
Aye.
Roberts.
Aye.
Mr. Chair.
Yes.
Okay. 7-0 to the Appropriations Committee. Don't let the Chair over there get you. Thank you, sponsors. All right, committee, that's it for today. Just to briefly note our work for Wednesday, 11-23 is back for action. We have 169, the Revisors Bill. We may get a bill or two coming over from the House that will be added as well. Please watch the calendar. Until Wednesday, Judiciary is adjourned. Thank you.