Supreme Court of California

The "criteria" of Penal Code section 2962 refer to the substantive criteria used by mental health professionals to certify a prisoner as an Mentally Disordered Offender (MDO), namely, whether the prisoner has a severe mental disorder, whether the disorder is not in remission or cannot be kept in remission without treatment, whether the disorder was a cause of or an aggravating factor in the commission of a crime listed in the statute for which the prisoner is incarcerated, whether the prisoner has been in treatment for the disorder for at least 90 days within the year prior to release on parole, and whether by reason of the disorder the prisoner represents a substantial danger of physical harm to others. Section 2962 does not require that compliance with the evaluation and certification procedures be proved to the trier of fact; instead, the issue of compliance with those procedures is a question of law for the court, and the Court of Appeal erred in holding otherwise.

Appellate Information

• Decided 10/31/2013
• Published 10/31/2013

Judges

• BAXTER

Court

• Supreme Court of California

Counsel