Some criminal defendants are getting a ‘get out of jail card’ if their lawyers tell the judge that mental illness was a factor.
Michele Hanisee, president of the Association of Los Angeles Deputy District Attorneys, says this change in the law was slipped into an uncontroversial Assembly health bill, without any proper debate, and yet the change is significant.
”It allows a court to give diversion, which means divert them from criminal proceedings for anyone who has a mental illness where it is proved that the crime was related to that mental illness. And the problem is not that it gives people with true mental illness a chance for diversion, it’s the manner in which this was done and the lack of checks and balances in the law as written.”
On top of that, she says the prosecution has no right to rebut.
Michele Hanisee was a guest on McIntyre in the Morning.
By Sandy Wells
KABC News