Drew Dixon
The House has approved a measure that would divert those being held in legal custody experiencing mental illness to mental health facilities instead of remaining in prison or jail.
The House took up a Senate bill that was approved in that chamber earlier this month. Sen. Jennifer Bradley, a Fleming Island Republican, sponsored the bill (SB 168), which is called the Tristin Murphy Act.
Tristin Murphy committed suicide in a Florida prison in 2021.
Rep. Nan Cobb, a Eustis Republican, carried the House version (HB 1207) and led discussion of the bill on the House floor. Cobb added three amendments to the Senate measure which were all approved, meaning the bill must go back to the Senate in the closing days of Session.
Much of the amended language approved in the House was technical in nature. But Cobb beefed up the bill in one area that will provide detailed programs for detainees demonstrating mental illness conditions.
“It strengthens the bill,” Cobb said, adding that the amendment requires each judicial circuit to establish a misdemeanor and felony mental health diversion program, mandates defendants be screened for mental illness within 24 hours of being booked into jail, and requires treatment for those detainees if they’ve been determined to be suffering mental illness.
If those misdemeanor defendants are enrolled in a treatment plan and complete it, prosecutors are then required to dismiss the case, according to the amendment.
The overall bill calls for the state to establish probation conditions for defendants with mental illness, sets requirements for work assignments for those detainees and expands training options under the criminal justice, mental health and substance abuse grant programs.
“We find ourselves with a very broken system,” Cobb said on the floor of the House. “Our system failed Tristin Murphy. … But today we have the ability to change lives with the Tristin Murphy Act, not with incarceration but with treatment.”
Rep. Dan Daley, a Coral Springs Democrat and former prosecutor in Broward County, said he witnessed far too many cases involving mentally ill defendants and the new measure is long overdue.
“Our jails have become our mental health providers in many counties,” Daley said. “This is a huge step in the right direction for mental health and the criminal justice system.”
The Senate bill gained momentum as Senate President Ben Albritton, a Wauchula Republican, threw his support behind the measure.
“Tristin’s parents and his son, Cody, have been so brave to tell his story and advocate for improvements to the way offenders with a mental health challenge are treated within the criminal justice system,” Albritton said as the measure worked its way through the Senate. “Learning about Tristin’s story and spending time with his parents had a profound impact on me.”
