Senate Joint Resolution 97 -- House Joint Resolution 142

Office of the Executive Secretary of the Supreme Court of Virginia

SJR 97 and HJR 142 request OES "to examine the feasibility of designing and implementing a model court order that addresses mental health services" for offenders.

• Prerequisites for the development of the model court orders:
1. What is the subject population for these orders?
2. At what point in the judicial process would these orders be utilized?
3. What type of officer would be utilizing these orders? At what level of court would these determinations occur?
4. To what services would the orders apply?
• Two formats for model court orders:
1. a "pre-printed" form order with text set forth and "check boxes"
2. a more "open-textured" document in a word processing-oriented format.

First format typical of district court forms; second lends itself to circuit courts.

• Development of court forms:
  • Occurs within the context of the usual monitoring of legislation by OES to revise current court forms and create new court forms.
  • Proposed revised and new forms considered by two advisory committees composed of judges and clerks from the two respective levels of court.
  • Recommendations of the District Court Forms Advisory Committee presented to the Committee on District Courts, which determines the records used in the district courts.
  • Recommendations of the Circuit Court Forms Advisory Committee do not undergo a further review, simply printed and distributed directly to the circuit courts.
• Conclusion: feasible to develop such model orders, once the study has produced well- defined options for the provision of mental health services to offenders.