S.3884 McDonald, A.6149 Ortiz
An act to amend the criminal procedure law, in relation to increasing the availability of professionals to perform evaluations regarding a defendant's fitness to proceed to trial in a criminal proceeding.

Synopsis and Provisions
The proposed legislation seeks to update Criminal Procedure Law to include licensed clinical social workers and licensed nurse practitioners in psychiatry in the definition of psychiatric examiner, for the purpose of determining a defendant’s mental capacity to proceed to trial in a criminal proceeding.

Current CPL law defines a psychiatric examiner as a “qualified psychiatrist” or a “certified psychologist.” The current definition prevents licensed clinical social workers from conducting psychiatric examinations in criminal proceedings, even though the functions of the examination lie directly within their scope of practice.
Enacting this legislation would allow duly licensed social workers to perform psychiatric evaluation in accordance with their level of competency while addressing the workforce shortage of currently authorized examiners (as contended by the counties) as well as address examination backlogs at a cost savings for the counties.

Status
This bill was introduced and referred to committee on Senate Codes on 03-08-11 and was introduced and referred to committee on Assembly Codes on 03-08-11.

NASW-NYS Position
NASW-NYS has issued a Memorandum in Support to this proposed legislation.