Ohio Senate bill would send low-level defendants to outpatient competency evaluation and free hospital beds
Spectrum News 1 reported on the introduction of Ohio Senate Bill 2, which would restructure how courts handle competency for nonviolent defendants, routing them to probate courts and community treatment rather than state hospital beds. Former Ohio Supreme Court Justice Evelyn Stratton, quoted in the story, put the share of hospital beds occupied by defendants in competency restoration at about 70 percent.
The article describes a revolving-door pattern in which low-level defendants spend weeks or months in a hospital and are then released and re-arrested. The same bill also had Ohio join the PSYPACT interstate psychology compact.
The bill went on to become law in 2021 and is the main Ohio legislative reform of competency restoration in this period.
Source: Gavarone Introduces Bill Improving Access to Mental Health — Spectrum News 1 Ohio, by Josh Rultenberg
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