The following article appeared in the August 4th, 2008 edition of Law Week Colorado:
She Forced State To Properly Pay For Mental Health
Following a decision in the February 2007 case, People vs. Eugene Zuniga, Iris Eytan was appointed as special counsel to the court, reporting on the treatment of the mentally ill in the criminal justice system. The University of San Diego School of Law grad attended law school to ensure these people were treated humanely. In People vs. Eugene Zuniga, it was determined that the state had failed to provide court-ordered sanity hearings and evaluations on 81 county-jail inmates whose competency to stand trial was in question. In some cases, the state had failed to do so for as long as five months. Eytan was appointed as a special prosecutor for the case and forced the state to properly pay for the programs and facilities needed for those inmates to get the proper care. As a member of the group that rewrote Colorado's competency statute, she spent the past six months researching and rewriting the statute, which directs how and when mental incompetency is raised and evaluated. Eytan stuck with House Bill 08-1392 to ensure its passage. The bill became effective July 1, however, her work with the competency statute has far from ended. She said that although she thinks it's a good beginning, there are still a lot of changes that need to be made. The mission to make more amendments to the statute will restart in November. Also as a result of the litigation, Eytan serves as the co-chair of the legal committee in the 1 861 Judicial District's establishment of mental health courts. The goal is to redirect a felon's punishments to ensure they get the treatment they need rather than going to prison.
Law Week photo by Paul Hartmann; Hartmann Photography
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