SALT LAKE CITY — Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill is proposing a new way to get people experiencing a severe mental health crisis into treatment and avoiding jail or prison.
"When we're trying to figure out how to sort of slow the flow of people in the criminal justice system and how really helping people who are mentally ill, it is the lack of a viable civil commitment process," he said in a recent interview with FOX 13 News.
So Gill is proposing to create a special "civil commitment court," that would bring together attorneys, advocates, treatment providers and family members to get someone oversight and treatment before things get so extreme that they wind up in jail or prison.
"A person who comes there is automatically appointed a guardian ad litem as their their legal counsel, we want to preserve everybody's due process rights, but we also want to have a very honest conversation about what a risk this person might be, and it is really driven by a continuity of care model," Gill explained.
He argued it would hold people — and their treatment providers — accountable while also avoiding jail or prison. At a recent meeting with advocates, attorneys and police, Gill pitched the idea. He has already gotten some tentative support from mental health advocacy organizations.
"We've been very concerned that too often we are criminalizing people who have very severe mental illness and relying on the criminal justice system and the jail to be the treatment provider of choice," said Sherri Wittwer with the Utah Shattering Silence Coalition. "What we would like to see is better access to care on a voluntary basis."
Wittwer said the idea has potential.
"Creating a court that has people with lived experience and family members as partners in building that model can be critical in helping people not just get a legal status of being on civil commitment, but get the lifesaving treatment they so desperately need," she told FOX 13 News.
One state lawmaker said he was intrigued.
"I think it's a really interesting idea that we should absolutely vet from a policy perspective, because we've been really challenged with some people under civil commitment in terms of accountability," he said. "And I think this could put additional accountability measures and teeth in the civil commitment process, which has actually been missing for far too long."
If the idea were to take off, the Utah State Legislature may be asked to provide some resources. That would happen during the 2027 legislative session that starts in January.