Mental Health Association in New York State, Inc.
(Publication Archives)

Friday Fax from Albany

10… 9… 8… 7… 6… : The Timothy’s Law end of session countdown now leaves us with only 6 Senate session days left to pass Timothy’s Law. MHANYS has prominently placed tear-off calendars outside nearly 100 offices in the Legislative Office Building and distributed flyers daily to the Senate. Other Timothy’s Law supporters are maintaining a constant presence outside the Senate Chamber while the Senate is in session. Senators are certainly aware that Timothy’s Law supporters are watching very closely.

Having already passed the bill, Assemblyman Paul Tonko and his Assembly colleagues have remained staunch in their support for Timothy’s Law, to ensure that everyone who needs coverage get it. Timothy’s Law supporters must maintain their efforts to demand that the Senate do the same.

But, as the countdown continues, the Senate is telling Timothy’s Law advocates and the O’Clairs that they “want to do something.” However, if that “something” is S.7296-A, the mental health parity bill the Senate introduced nearly a month ago, we know that won’t do. According to Tom O’Clair, “It’s a far cry from Timothy’s Law (S.5329).”

Tom is joined by Timothy’s Law supporters statewide who believe that an anti-discrimination bill that allows discrimination against those with mental illness and chemical dependency to continue, based upon their employer and their diagnosis, is unacceptable. Timothy’s Law must, once and for all, put an end to the discrimination individuals with mental illness and chemical dependency face in insurance coverage, no matter what their circumstances.

ACTION NEEDED!!!

Demand that the Senate not come home
without passing Timothy’s Law!!

Please, Do it for Timothy…

In the News:

Eating disorders bill advances. By James M. Odato
Albany Times Union, June 8, 2004

ALBANY -- The Assembly on Monday joined the Senate in passing a bill that would set up centers for people with eating disorders, upsetting advocates who have been pushing for a different mental health parity bill.

The Assembly passed the bill 123-17. The Senate passed the bill overwhelmingly last month.

It provides $500,000 this year to set up care centers for eating disorders and requires insurers to provide coverage for treatments.

The advocates of mental health legislation called Timothy's Law, including Assemblyman Paul Tonko, D-Amsterdam, complained that people with eating disorders make up only some of the patients suffering from mental illness who need insurance coverage.

"This is a good start," said Thomas O'Clair of Rotterdam. His son, Timothy O'Clair, killed himself at age 12 after his parents had difficulty affording care for his repeated bouts of depression.

Senate Republicans say they will pass a Timothy's Law that differs from the one already passed in the Assembly. The Assembly version includes mandated coverage of treatments for mental health problems and would impose the insurance mandate on all employer health plans. The Senate wants to exclude small employers.

Bill seeks to keep predators in custody.
Syracuse Post-Standard, June 6, 2004

Legislators say Syracuse case shows need to keep sex offenders off streets.

Albany - A man accused of killing at least two women in Syracuse since his release in January from state prison shows the need to keep sexual predators in custody even after their prison sentences end, state legislators argued.

Proponents of a so-called civil commitment bill under which sex offenders would be held in secure mental institutions after their release from prison are using Nicholas Lee Wiley as Exhibit A in arguing for their legislation.

"This was the kind of case that could have prevented serious, serious consequences if civil commitment had been in place," said state Sen. Nancy Larraine Hoffmann, a Syracuse-area Republican.

Sixteen other states and the District of Columbia have programs where inmates deemed to still be sexual predators can be ordered into the custody of civil authorities upon expiration of their prison sentences.

"All we have to do is look at these murders in Syracuse to confirm that which is already known by law enforcement professionals - we're letting sexual predators out of prison and we know that they're going to do it again," said Sen. Dale Volker, an Erie County Republican and chief sponsor of a civil commitment bill.

Wiley was released in January from Auburn state prison after serving all 12 years of his six- to 12-year sentence for sodomizing a 16-year-old girl. State prison spokesman James Flateau said Wiley served three years longer than the usual automatic release date for inmates - at the two-thirds point in their sentences - in part because the inmate refused to participate in a sex offender treatment program in prison.

Senate Republicans have passed a civil commitment bill since 1999, but have been unable to find majority Democratic sponsorship for the legislation in the Democrat-dominated state Assembly. The Senate approved the measure most recently on April 28 by a 59-2 margin.

The measure would identify "sexually violent predators" coming to the end of their prison sentences who are considered to be at high risk of committing further sex crimes if released. The state attorney general would be able to petition courts in those cases and have juries decide whether offenders are, in fact, too dangerous to let back into society.

Offenders would be ordered to secure mental health facilities, where they must receive treatment for what the legislation refers to as "abnormalities" that compel them to act in sexually violent ways. Their conditions have to be reviewed every year by mental health experts and, if improvement is judged to have been made to the point the offenders are no longer in danger of committing other sex crimes, the experts can recommend release.

Volker said the high recidivism rate among sex offenders - up to half are sent back to prison for parole violations or other crimes - makes it mandatory for the state to treat those criminals differently from other offenders. That's doubly the case because sexual predators commit their crimes mainly against women and children, Volker said.

In states where such systems are in place, Hoffmann said, only a handful of predators each year are judged to be of such danger to the public that they are ordered to remain in custody when their sentences run out.

Democrats in the Assembly contend that the state Senate's civil commitment bill is too broad and could result in long stretches of what amounts to incarceration for offenders above what the law provides for their crimes.

One of the two "no" votes in the Senate on the bill in April, Brooklyn Democrat Velmanette Montgomery, said she in no way minimizes the dangers posed by sexual predators. But she said medical science appears to still know so little about what causes such deviant behavior that there is no reliable way of judging when a sex offender is "cured."

State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, a Democrat, supports civil commitment for sex offenders, his spokesman Darren Dopp said.

"He's always considered it a sensible measure," Dopp said.