Senate and House split over measure advocating mental health treatment for detainees

A tussle between the Senate and the House has emerged over a measure aiming to ensure mental health treatment for those suffering from mental illness who are detained in Florida jails and prisons.

On the last day of the Legislative Session, the Senate rejected amendments to the “Tristin Murphy Act” approved by the House Thursday. Sen. Jennifer Bradley, a Fleming Island Republican, originally sponsored the bill (SB 168) and drafted the initial language.

Bradley said the House went too far with the three amendments that the chamber approved.

The amendments “changed funding for the data center, changed criteria for designation of behavioral health teaching hospitals (and) removed flexibility for the implementation of mental health diversion programs contained in our very excellent original bill,” Bradly said.

She then motioned that the Senate “refuse to concur” with all three amendments and “request the House recede” from the amendments. The motion was approved without objection as some in the Senate chamber applauded.

The bill is named after Tristin Murphy, who 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 Thursday as the chamber agreed to adopt the Senate language. She added the three amendments after the Senate had already approved the original measure in early April.

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 Thursday, 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 would then be 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.

The original 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.”

The House is set to reconvene at 4 p.m. Friday.