Law to Give Some “Mentally Unfit” Crime Suspects Long-term Psych Care

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, as well as two local Manhattan politicians, are celebrating the signing of a law that intends to ensure long-term psychiatric help for people found mentally incapable of standing criminal trial in New York.

The “SUPPORT Act”—that’s Support and Provide Psychiatric Outreach and Rehabilitative Treatment Act—was signed into law by NY Governor Kathy Hochul on Dec. 23.

NYS Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal, who sponsored the bill in the Senate, explained that he was spurred to develop the legislation after working with Justin Go. Go is the father of Michelle Go, the 40-year-old Chinese-American woman who was fatally shoved in front of an oncoming subway train at the Times Square-42nd Street station back in 2022. Her death spurred the #StopAsianHate movement against the rise in hate crimes against East Asians in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, although her attack was deemed to be the result of mental illness and not racially motivated.

Martial Simon, a schizophrenic 61-year-old homeless man who was arrested in connection with the shoving, was eventually found mentally unfit to stand trial.

“I’ll never forget meeting the parents of Michelle Go, who was killed on January 15, 2022, when she was shoved in front of a subway train by a man with a long history of mental illness,” Hoylman-Sigal said. “Thanks in part to their support of our legislation, the SUPPORT Act, we can start ensuring continuity of care for the most vulnerable populations,” he stated.

“For too long, cases involving individuals found unfit to stand trial due to mental disease or defect have been routinely dismissed without adequate planning or support at the point of discharge. That isn’t justice or compassion,” he added.

“Ensuring care after a minor charge will reduce the chances of later, more extreme crimes involving people struggling with a severe mental illness, such as the tragic subway pushing of Michelle Go,” said Assembly Member Tony Simone, who sponsored the bill in the lower chamber.

DA Bragg applauded the new bill as well. “Each year, hundreds of New Yorkers are found unfit to stand trial and quickly returned to their communities without adequate supports to prevent the same thing from happening again and again,” he said in a statement. “By signing the SUPPORT Act, Governor Hochul is helping ensure that New Yorkers don’t fall through the cracks of our mental healthcare safety net.”

The new law will “ensure a continuum of care to support the long-term stability of people living with serious mental illness who are returning to our communities from psychiatric hospitalization,” he added.

Currently, if criminal suspects who are found mentally unfit are charged with a felony, they are committed to a psychiatric facility until they are “found fit to proceed” with the trial. Suspects with misdemeanors who are found mentally unfit have their cases dismissed.

While an individual may be released from a psychiatric facility within three days of the dismissal, he may receive no follow-up psychiatric outreach or outpatient care, since it was not adequately mandated as part of patient discharge plans under the previous law.

Essentially, the SUPPORT Act will require “immediate connections to temporary and supportive housing, and continuing psychiatric and other medical care” for these individuals, Bragg said.