Some New Mexico residents with severe mental illness could receive court-ordered outpatient treatment under a new proposal.
Senate President Pro Tem Mary Kay Papen is scheduled Thursday to discuss the proposed bill to the Courts, Corrections and Justice Committee.
The bill would allow judges to order patients to take medication and undergo treatment if they are deemed a danger to themselves and their community. Papen says it's a version of New York's Kendra's law.
That measure was named after Kendra Webdale, a 32-year-old woman who was pushed in front of an oncoming subway train in 1999 by a man battling untreated schizophrenia.
According to the Arlington, Va.,-based Treatment Advocacy Center, New Mexico is one of five states without a law allowing court orders to make mental health outpatients take medications.
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