Panel eyes Marchman, Baker act modifications: Bar's Special Committee on Mental Health issues its interim report.

Prosecutors--not a substance abuser's family or friends --should be the "real party of interest" in Marchman Act commitments, and property damage should be a reason to hospitalize Baker Act respondents against their will.

Those are just some of the recommendations in a new report by the Bar's Special Committee on Mental Health.

Committee Co-Chair Steven Leifman, a Miami-Dade County judge, told the Board of Governors at its May 18 meeting in Key West that Florida's legal system for dealing with substance abuse and mental health disorders isn't a system at all, but an "aberration."

"When I became a judge, I had no idea that I was actually becoming a gatekeeper to the largest psychiatric facility in Florida," Judge Leifman said. "And sadly, that's the Miami-Dade County jail."

The traditional legal tools for assessing and treating substance abuse and mental illness--the Marchman and Baker acts respectively--need updating if Florida is going to meet the challenges of a raging opioid epidemic and deadly mass shootings, Judge Leifman said.

Last year, Florida Bar President Michael Higer gave the committee 24 months to evaluate Florida laws and develop educational programs for teaching the legal community to accommodate clients and colleagues with mental illness.

At the half-way point, the panel is releasing an interim report that recommends 17 changes to Florida laws. (The Board of Governors took no action concerning the interim report's recommendations. When the final report is released, it will be reviewed by the board's Legislation Committee.) The good news, Judge Leifman said, is that the new leaders in the Florida Legislature appear to be receptive.

"Most of our work this last year was focused on the legislative side, primarily because we have an incoming speaker of the House and an incoming Senate president who are extraordinarily sensitive to these issues," Judge Leifman said. "I think it's probably our best chance in about four years to really make structural changes in Florida."

If adopted, the changes would be the next step in a legal evolution that began in 1970 with the creation of the Ch. 397, "Treatment and Rehabilitation of Drug Dependents." Lawmakers followed up a year later with Ch. 396, "Comprehensive Alcoholism Prevention, Control and Treatment Act," otherwise known as the "Myers Act."

A few decades later, legislators combined both chapters into the Marchman Act of 1993, after acknowledging that alcoholism and addiction are...