Idaho would have mental health holds for neurological patients under a new bill

BOISE (Idaho Capital Sun) — A bill is headed to the Idaho Senate floor that would let Idaho law enforcement officers temporarily detain people who are dangerous to themselves or others because of neurological conditions like Alzheimer’s.

The bill, Senate Bill 1247, addresses a gap in Idaho law that doesn’t let police detain people for neurological crises, but allows for 72-hour mental health holds, said Rep. Melissa Wintrow, D-Boise, who presented the bill that’s co-sponsored by committee members.

Wintrow said many Idahoans are detained under the mental health hold, even though they have neurological conditions. 

The bill outlines a process for a 24-hour hold for people with neurological conditions who are “likely to injure themselves or others.”

“We do not want to detain people any longer than necessary because it is not mental illness,” Wintrow said.

The Senate Health and Welfare Committee on Tuesday voted to send Senate Bill 1247 to the Senate floor, where state senators could debate the bill before sending it over to the Idaho House. Wintrow raised the possibility of later amending the bill, following concerns by two law enforcement representatives.

Bill fixes a hole in Idaho law, supporters say

As Jack Miller, a bureau chief in the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, stepped up to testify, he took off his red name tag, signifying he’s a state employee.

He said he was speaking as Jack Miller Jr., whose father became a danger to himself and others as his Alzheimer’s progressed.

When Miller asked law enforcement to take his dad out of the house because he wasn’t safe, they said they couldn’t. His dad eventually moved to a home, where it was discovered that he had a block in his urinary tract. 

Miller can’t stop thinking about what else he could’ve done to keep his dad home, like he wanted. 

“This bill is a tool. It’s an opportunity to be able to do something. And give families that opportunity to keep their loved ones at home,” Miller said.

Idaho police, without other options, are essentially forced to detain people without mental health conditions under the state’s mental health hold process, said Dr. Nicole Fox, president of the Idaho Psychiatric Association and regional medical director for behavioral health for St. Luke’s Health System. That leaves patients with neurological conditions to wait 48 to 72 hours for an examiner to decide if the hold should be dropped, she said. 

“We don’t have an alternative way. This is an alternative way so that police are not being asked to use a statute inappropriately. We have this opportunity to provide a more time-limited protective hold for dementia patients,” Fox said.

New bill would address gap in Idaho law, supporters say, but some law enforcement representatives worried about how police would be liable

But Idaho Fraternal Order of Police legislative chair Mike Miraglia — who said he only recently heard about the bill — said the bill creates a “huge liability” for law enforcement officers.

“I’m a crisis negotiator, so I’ve talked people off buildings, literally. And so I speak from experience,” he said. “However, it still is one that … when we do head down that road, and we do have to use our enforcement powers, then it becomes a bad situation for grandpa or grandma. And we don’t want to put them in that, especially not having any type of judicial review.”

Wintrow acknowledged that she hadn’t worked with Miraglia’s police group, but mentioned working with many stakeholders, including law enforcement officials.

Garden City Mayor John Evans told the committee he opposed the bill itself, but not what it was hoping to accomplish. He said he wouldn’t let the police department use the hold process outlined in the bill because of the liabilities it could expose law enforcement to, worrying that it could raise civil rights concerns.

Senate Assistant Majority Leader Abby Lee, R-Fruitland, told Evans she doesn’t think the bill puts police officers under a higher burden that they already deal with. Evans agreed. 

“What I’m suggesting here is if emergency medical people are given the authority to make this whole distinction, the police would be happy to help with them,” Evans said.