Proposal Would Streamline Involuntary Treatment Of Those With Severe Mental Illness…Public defenders are obliged to fight involuntary treatment for their clients. Lawmakers are considering cutting them out of the process.
Hawaii residents with mental illnesses so severe and persistent that they don’t even realize they need help can be ordered by a judge to get outpatient treatment.
But since Hawaii revamped the Assisted Community Treatment law in July 2019, only one person has gotten court-ordered assistance, according to the Institute for Human Services, a service provider that has filed petitions to get people treatment.
Public defenders, the lawyers who represent mentally ill clients facing ACT petitions, are working to halt the proceedings every step of the way.
