Over six years ago, California’s Legislature quietly tucked a sweeping mental-health diversion law into a 900-page budget bill, bypassing voters entirely, and handed dangerous offenders what some legal officials are describing as a get-out-of-jail-free card.

Sacramento County Sheriff Jim Cooper and San Diego County District Attorney Summer Stephan spoke with the Daily Caller News Foundation to discuss California’s diversion model and how defendants charged with felony child abuse, carjackings, residential burglaries and attempted murders can walk free without ever entering a guilty plea. Both officials said inmates openly strategize around diversion, with Cooper mentioning the tactic being heard over recorded jail calls.

The state doesn’t track who is granted diversion, how often they return or whether anyone completes treatment at all.

LISTEN 

WHERE IT ALL BEGAN

In 2018, California lawmakers folded Assembly Bill 1810 into that year’s 900-page budget bill, passing it in a matter of days with almost no public debate.

The legislation created a full mental-health diversion system from scratch, outlining eligibility rules, a two-year diversion period and a narrow exclusion list limited to murder, rape and a handful of sex crimes. Nearly every other felony remained eligible, regardless of prior arrests, gang ties or the severity of the conduct.

Just months later, lawmakers returned with Senate Bill 215 to patch vague procedures and missing definitions.

Four years later, the legislature dramatically expanded the program with Senate Bill 1223, shifting the burden of proof away from defendants and onto prosecutors, lowering the threshold for qualifying diagnoses and shortening misdemeanor diversion timelines. With those changes, a defendant only needs to show a mental disorder “played a significant role,” a standard prosecutors say is so broad that virtually any DSM-5 diagnosis now qualifies.

VIEW FROM LAW ENFORCEMENT

On paper, the diversion program looked clinical and contained. Cooper told the DCNF everything changed behind the scenes.

“They opened up the floodgates wide open with this,” Cooper said. “There are about 300 diagnoses. And if you qualify for that, then your case could be expunged. We’re talking about erectile dysfunction, sleepwalking, caffeine withdrawal, marijuana addiction, [you] got alcohol withdrawal, alcohol addiction — just crazy stuff. Pretty much anybody can find something that will apply to them.” (RELATED: How The ACLU Indirectly Helped Keep Hundreds Of Young Girls On ‘Kiddie Stroll’)

Under the current statute, only a very short list of crimes are automatically off-limits. Things like murder, voluntary manslaughter, major sex offenses and a few rare charges involving weapons of mass destruction make the exclusion list.

Almost everything else is still eligible, including attempted murder, felony child abuse with serious injuries and armed carjackings, as long as a defendant can show a qualifying mental-health diagnosis. The bar to get approved is so low that defendants don’t even need a medical doctor to diagnose them, according to Cooper.

Psychiatrists, psychologists or even licensed marriage and family therapists can issue qualifying diagnoses, Cooper said, and some do it after the fact or without ever meeting the person. One Northern California clinician handled around 300 evaluations and “always found” a disorder, calling it a cottage industry that makes diversion almost automatic, the sheriff told the DCNF.

In addition to the ease of acquiring a mental health diagnosis, Cooper said judges are obligated to approve offenders into the program because of how the law was written.

With offender’s records scrubbed after completing the program, Cooper said his deputies are spotting diversion disasters everywhere: bank robbers who reoffend, burglars caught with tens of thousands of dollars in stolen jewelry, violent offenders gaming the system by seeking after-the-fact diagnoses.

Cooper pointed to one case that has stuck with him: a one-year-old girl, “Baby A,” who died from blunt-force head trauma. The child suffered a skull fracture, rib fractures and brain hemorrhaging. Her father admitted he drank a pint of vodka and two tall cans of beer while caring for her. He was charged with felony child abuse, not murder — and received mental-health diversion.

“His record is expunged,” Cooper said. “His live scan comes back clear. There’s no record. He can go be a teacher, he can go be a coach, a counselor, a Girl Scout or Boy Scout leader, ’cause he’s clear. And it’s just okay this guy killed his own kid. Do I really want him around my children or any other children? Hell no.”

Cooper pointed out two additional cases affected by diversion. One was a Sacramento diversion recipient who later stabbed and killed a person, and another was a 20-month-old boy, “Baby H,” who suffered a lacerated liver, internal organ damage and 49 external injuries. Both parents in that case applied for diversion.

Inside the Sacramento County jail, inmates are now talking about diversion like it’s a get-out-of-jail strategy, according to the sheriff.

“In 2024 for a three-month period, they had 890 conversations that mentioned mental health diversion,” Cooper told the DCNF. “This year for a three-month period, it’s 11,000. They’re talking about it on the phones with their families and friends. They all know about that.”

The most alarming flaw in the system for Cooper, however, wasn’t just how broadly diversion is offered — it’s that California intentionally built the program with no tracking mechanism at all.  Prosecutors, deputies and even judges are unable to determine who has been diverted, how many times they’ve cycled through the system or whether they ever completed treatment. Cooper argued that vacuum isn’t an oversight or a bureaucratic gap, “it was deliberately done.”

“No one in California can tell you how many folks have gotten mental health diversion. No one has any idea,” Cooper said. “From state government down to local officials, no one has any idea. No one’s keeping track and no one’s keeping records.”

Notably, the Judicial Council of California tracks how many diversion petitions are filed and granted each year, but it does not track how many unique offenders went through the program since 2018, how many times they’ve cycled through or what their long-term outcomes are.

The chaos Cooper described isn’t isolated to Sacramento. Prosecutors say the same cracks appear when these cases actually land in front of a judge.

INSIDE THE COURTROOM

In San Diego County, Stephan told the DCNF her office is seeing the same problems, only this time inside the courtroom and not on the streets. While she supports narrow diversion for genuinely unwell offenders that are young or veterans, the current system appears to be nothing like that.

“California has really gone too far with the diversion laws,” Stephan told the DCNF. “They no longer balance the rights of victims or the right of the community to be safe. The only thing the diversion laws address and seem to be concerned with are the rights of the criminals. Public safety is at the bottom of the list.”

“What we have now in California are 16 different diversion laws,” Stephan added. “Mental health diversion applies to felony crimes and includes things like serial residential burglaries that terrorize people, violent carjacks, attempt to murder. It essentially only excludes rape and murder.”

The San Diego County DA described a recent case where a man accused of a sweeping residential burglary spree — eight burglaries, five attempted burglaries and multiple vehicle thefts — received diversion after claiming alcohol abuse, opioid abuse and bipolar disorder.

“He immediately absconded from treatment,” Stephan said. “And he went home and attacked his grandmother with a hammer.”

Another defendant carjacked two women, fled, crashed and assaulted another inmate after being booked — but still received diversion because he cited a methamphetamine disorder.

Stephan emphasized that diversion lets defendants avoid pleading guilty entirely, walk into treatment with no supervision requirements and have their records scrubbed when they finish. She also noted that the law never defined what treatment must look like, meaning offenders can meet diversion requirements through loosely structured outpatient programs with little oversight and end up back on the streets in no time.

Stephan hasn’t run into the same tracking issue as the sheriff, as her office can see offenders’ old cases internally.

The San Diego County DA warned that due to the burden of proof being shifted onto the prosecution, oftentimes it’s unclear if they’re even allowed to use criminals’ past offenses during their cases. The result, she said, is that offenders return to court looking like first-timers again and again.

Stephan echoed Cooper’s concern that judges have little power to block dangerous defendants’ program eligibility.

“The judges tell us all the time … their hands are tied,” Stephan said. “The law tells them they must grant mental-health diversion if these things are met — and the things that have to be met are so minimal.”

SUPPORT FOR THE PROGRAM

Not everyone has been against the program. Several Democratic lawmakers and justice-reform groups have publicly supported the statute and its amendments over the years. Before AB 1810 was folded into the 2018 budget, its author, former Democratic state Sen. Jim Beall, argued that “early, court-assisted interventions are far more likely to lead to longer, cheaper, more stable solutions for the community, and for the person suffering from mental illness.”

After AB 1810 passed and lawmakers rushed through its cleanup bill, SB 215, Disability Rights California sent Beall a formal letter backing the mental-health diversion model. The group wrote there was an “urgent need for specific and targeted efforts to reduce the rates of incarceration of people with mental illness,” calling the situation among jailed defendants “dire.”

“Jails are not therapeutic environments,” the 2018 letter stated. “They are not designed to be mental-health treatment centers. Prisoners with mental illness are significantly more likely than those without mental illness to be abused. The over-incarceration of people with mental illness is directly at odds with California’s stated commitment to providing treatment in the least restrictive manner appropriate, with respect for the right to ‘dignity, privacy, and humane care.’”

By 2022, when lawmakers broadened the statute again under SB 1223, the American Civil Liberties Union of California sponsored the update. In its statement, included in the Senate’s bill analysis, ACLU California Action wrote that SB 1223 “will improve public safety by eliminating barriers to participation in the existing mental health diversion program, ensuring that persons with mental health conditions can get the treatment they need.”

HOW TO FIX IT

Both officials said the Legislature could stop the abuse immediately with specific adjustments — but so far, lawmakers haven’t made a change. Cooper recommended the fix should start with restoring judicial authority.

“Child abuse, number one, shouldn’t qualify for diversion,” Cooper told the DCNF. “Felony child abuse with great bodily injury shouldn’t qualify. And judges need more authority to make decisions in these cases.”

Cooper also noted the statute should be changed regarding the judge’s admittance of who they grant the diversion to, allowing judges to block repeat offenders and violent defendants.

Under SB 1223, a judge technically “may grant” diversion at the start of the process, but the law requires the court to “shall find” that a mental-health diagnosis significantly contributed to the crime unless prosecutors can disprove it with clear and convincing evidence. That shift effectively limits judicial discretion, because the presumption activates automatically unless prosecutors can overcome it, even in serious or repeat-offender cases.

When asked about her suggested revision for the law, Stephan said the program needs a top-to-bottom rewrite.

“It should eliminate all serious violent crimes,” Stephan told the DCNF. “There needs to be an actual connection between the mental-health diagnosis and the crime.”

THE HUMAN COST

Both Cooper and Stephan said the victims in these cases are the ones paying the price. Stephan said her office now has to call victims years after the crime because diversion delays the outcome of cases until the defendant either completes treatment or is kicked out.

“We have to share with them all of this,” Stephan told the DCNF. “They’re aghast. They can’t believe this is actually happening. That this is the new law. You could get carjacked, threatened, your house burglarized, someone tries to kill you — all of these things will still allow somebody to walk free.”

Cooper said the victims he’s spoken with in his county express the same disbelief.

“They’re very angry about it,” Cooper told the DCNF. “They can’t believe it.”

Stephan said when voters learn what diversion actually covers, they’ll be shocked it never appeared on a statewide ballot.

“When a system no longer cares about victims or the community and only sides one way, it does not [work] anymore,” Stephan said.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact [email protected].