LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- With two days left of the 2021 legislative session, a bill that would close a potentially dangerous loophole in Kentucky law still awaits action from the state Senate.
An amendment to House Bill 310 seeks to close a gap in state law that has allowed some mentally ill defendants to dodge both prison time and mental health treatment after they are accused of crimes.
In Louisville's California neighborhood, community leaders like Yolanda Walker, Carol Clark and George Fields hope the legislature will act before the session expires.
"Please, in the name of God, do the right (thing) for the citizens and especially for the little girl who has to live this trauma," Clark said Friday, when asked for her message to lawmakers.
The three gathered in California Park on a pleasant afternoon. There, the signs of winter are quickly fading. Friday, under a blue-hued sky, children played a game of pick-up basketball on the weathered court, cardinals sang from blooming branches and green grass glowed in the warm sunlight.
But to Walker, who's the president of the California Neighborhood Leadership Council, the colors weren't as rich and the joy of spring wasn't as sweet.
Yolanda Walker, the President of the California Neighborhood Leadership Council. (WDRB Photo)
"There's a scary feeling that our children may not be safe in the park again," she said.
She offered that admission, because she says the loophole in state law has terrorized her neighborhood, and continues to do so, in the form of Cane Madden.
Madden was accused of raping and assaulting an 8-year-old girl, fracturing her skull with a shovel, in an August 2019 attack on Hale Avenue, just a few minutes walk from the park.
In early March, a Jefferson Circuit Court judge determined that Madden is mentally incompetent to stand trial. Judge Annie O'Connell also determined that Madden is also unlikely to regain competency in the foreseeable future. By law, given the finding of incompetency, his charges were slated to be dismissed.
Madden quietly sits beside his public defender. (WDRB Photo)
Now, as they feared all along, Walker and the others worry Madden will soon fall through a gap in the system and avoid mental health treatment too because of problematic state law WDRB News has exposed repeatedly since 2019.
"I'm tired of hearing his name. I'm tired of his face," Walker said Friday. "I'm tired of the revolving door."
The case against Madden, who has a record of mental illness and has repeatedly been found incompetent to stand trial after past felony arrests, has gained statewide attention as it revealed a problem with Kentucky law.
The current state law stipulates defendants with mental issues, like Madden, who are found incompetent to stand trial, can only be involuntarily hospitalized for treatment if they meet three criteria:
- The person must be deemed a danger to himself or others
- The person is expected to benefit from treatment, and
- Hospitalization is the least restrictive treatment available
"That loophole has to be fixed," Walker concluded. "That law has to be passed."
For Walker, Fields and Clark, there is some hope. In mid-March, in a unanimous vote, 96 members of the Kentucky House of Representatives passed HB 310 to close the loophole.
Sen. Morgan McGarvey of Louisville speaks with a California neighborhood resident about Cane Madden. (2019 file photo)
But now, as the bill awaits action from the Kentucky Senate during the last two days left of the 2021 session, the neighbors have growing anxiety.
"It's imperative that we put some pressure on them and get House Bill 310 passed," said Clark. "It's imperative."
Without the change included in HB 310, she and Fields worry Madden and others like him will keep walking free, they worry there will be new victims across the state and they worry the California community will always live with an element of fear — even on a pleasant spring day.
"I'm pissed. I don't like it. I don't care who don't like what I'm saying. I don't like it," said Fields, a civil rights activist. "Take heed to that. Take heed to that in order to stop what can happen."
HB 310 is scheduled for a hearing before the Senate Standing Committee on Judiciary at 10:30 a.m. Monday.
Sen. Morgan McGarvey, D-Louisville, who helped shepherd the fix that now appears in HB 310, expects the bill will encounter some resistance but is optimistic it will pass either Monday or Tuesday.
In the meantime, he and the neighbors say anyone who would like to advocate for the bill's passage should do so by calling the legislative hotline at 1-800-372-7181.
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