4 days ago
Sacramento DA, sheriff urge changes to state's mental health diversion law
Standing before images of abused toddlers, Sacramento County's law enforcement leaders warned that California's mental health diversion program is allowing too many defendants to escape punishment.
At a town hall in south Sacramento attended by about 50 people, Sacramento County Sheriff Jim Cooper and District Attorney Thien Ho urged residents to push lawmakers for more restrictions on the statewide program, which was established in 2018. Under the law, defendants who present a mental health diagnosis usually have their charges dismissed and records cleared after completing a treatment plan.
'Pretty much anybody can qualify for mental health diversion,' Cooper said.
The event's panelists — Cooper, Ho, Undersheriff Mike Ziegler and Sheriff's Office Sgt. John Sydow — repeatedly pointed to the wide range of disorders, including erectile dysfunction and caffeine withdrawal, that can justify diversion and the short list of offenses for which the program is off limits.
The town hall came five weeks after a bill that would have added several child abuse crimes to that list failed in the Assembly's Public Safety Committee. Cooper had testified in favor of the bill, which was introduced by Assemblymember Maggy Krell, D-Sacramento. AB 433 only mustered two votes in the committee in April and did not move on to the full Assembly.
'That really just — it made me mad,' said Cooper, who added that he hoped the bill could be reintroduced in the next legislative session. 'You have to stand with the children.'
But another bill to tighten the mental health diversions — AB 46, introduced by Assemblymember Stephanie Nguyen, D-Elk Grove — passed the Assembly, 56-7, last month. It is now under consideration in the Senate.
Under the current law passed in 2018, judges are required to presume that a defendant's diagnosed mental health disorder was a factor that caused them to commit the crime, Ho said. Nguyen's bill removes that presumption in cases where the diagnosis came after the offense or more than five years earlier. It also broadens prosecutors' latitude to argue that a diversion should be denied because the defendant poses a threat to public safety.
Sydow, who leads the sheriff's Child Abuse Bureau, spoke about two recent cases, with images of the abused children displayed behind him. In one of them, 1-year-old 'Baby A' had suffered severe injuries including blunt force trauma while in her father's custody, and the father received a mental health diversion in connection with her death, Sydow said.
He said he feared an attempt to seek mental health diversion would be the defense attorney's next step in the case of 'Baby R,' a 20-month-old girl who remains under medical care following alleged torture at the hands of her father. The dad and the mother, who was in Florida during the abuse, are charged with child abuse and torture — crimes that authorities said would be eligible for the diversion program.
Cooper argued that the law's list of crimes for which defendants are ineligible for mental health diversion — including murder, rape and sex crimes — leaves out other serious offenses. He noted that people who receive treatment instead of potential prison time have their cases wiped from their criminal records, inaccessible to future background checks.
'I choose kids over offenders,' said Cooper, who told ABC 10 on Thursday morning that he would seek a second term as sheriff in 2026.
Ho said his office objected to 977 attempts to pursue mental health diversion in 2024, an increase from 144 the year before.
'It's being used as a sword, versus a shield, and it's being used quite regularly by the Public Defender's Office,' Ho said. 'I am all for somebody getting the treatment that they need, but this law needs to be changed because it's being abused.'
The Public Defender's Office could not be immediately reached for comment Thursday morning.
Keyan Bliss, a member of the activist groups Decarcerate Sacramento and the Anti Police Terror Project, stood at the back of the room, interjecting at one point to challenge the panelists' claims that the diversion program was not working.
After the event, Bliss said the Sacramento County Main Jail is overpopulated and failing to adequately treat mentally ill inmates.
He called Cooper and Ho's calls to reform the mental health diversion program 'a massive deflection from the reality that most of the people that are inside the jail every day haven't even been before a judge yet.'
'Many of them are struggling with mental health illnesses, and a significant number of them are homeless,' he said.
In an interview, Cooper said he does not oversee the jail's mental health services but that mentally ill inmates 'are being dealt with.' Still, he and Ho contended that the diversion program allows nearly anyone to claim mental health problems and evade accountability.
