I have always thought that California's mental health pretrial diversion statute gave potential criminals a fair degree of incentive to get someone to diagnose them with a mental disorder prior to committing a wide variety of common crimes. Today, the Court of Appeal holds that no advance planning is required: that as long as the diagnosis is within five years of the motion for pretrial diversion, the statute's satisfied, even if the diagnosis comes long after the actual crime.
Which is nice.
Now, it's still in the court's discretion, and there are some caveats. But this seems like a fairly substantial benefit to criminal defendants.
Many of whom, I suspect, could easily -- easily -- be diagnosed with a mental disorder. Even from a neutral physician, and even more so from a physician who's, shall we say, a bit more of a paid advocate.
