Case Explained: Vermont has no facility for people incompetent to stand trial. Could that finally change?  – Legal Perspective

Kelly Carroll’s daughter was slashed to death five years ago — and she thinks the man accused of murdering the 26-year-old slipped through cracks in the system.

The Pownal man charged with killing Emily Hamman was previously charged with other violent crimes and found incompetent to stand trial, meaning he was unable to take part in his own defense or understand the charges he was facing. 

He was court ordered to receive treatment at a psychiatric hospital. But after his mental health stabilized in the hospital setting, mental health officials were required to release him and monitor him in the community. It was after that release that he allegedly murdered Carroll’s daughter. 

Carroll thinks his release shouldn’t have happened, that there should have been some alternative.

Almost all states have a locked facility for people who are facing charges for violent crimes but are deemed incompetent to stand trial or found not guilty by reason of insanity, according to Karen Barber, general counsel for the Vermont Department of Mental Health. But Vermont has never had one. 

“We have real gaps in our system,” Barber said. 

Vermont lawmakers have tried to address those gaps for years. But looking at the issue prompts a sticky debate about balancing the health needs and legal rights of defendants with concerns about public safety and justice. 

This year, a bill under consideration by Vermont lawmakers is reopening the conversation.

Under current state law, if someone is deemed incompetent to stand trial or not guilty of a crime by reason of insanity, either their case can be moved to family court or they can be transferred into the custody of the state’s Department of Mental Health for treatment. But, the Department of Mental Health will take someone into its custody only if the defendant has a clinical need for treatment. 

Defendants have been deemed incompetent or insane in a number of high profile murder cases over the last few years, including in a Brattleboro ax murder and a Newbury killing. Many more have been muddied with competency evaluations, like in a Burlington meat cleaver slaying and an Enosburgh homicide. 

Someone can restore their competency through taking civics classes or receiving mental health counseling, Barber said. But for some conditions, like a traumatic brain injury, it’s unknown if someone’s competency could be restored, she said. 

If the case gets moved to family court, it gets routinely reviewed every several months. But if the defendant remains incompetent to stand trial, the case is left unresolved, and the defendant may not remain in custody. 

“It floats off into the ether” unless someone’s competency changes, said Sen. Nader Hashim, D-Windham, in a Jan. 20 committee hearing on the bill. 

For Carroll, that lack of closure has drawn out her family’s suffering. The man charged with killing her daughter, Darren Pronto, was again deemed incompetent to stand trial in criminal court. 

A judge ordered him to a Berlin psychiatric facility, where he received treatment until mental health professionals said he no longer required such a restrictive setting. Then a judge sent Pronto to jail due to concerns he posed a risk to public safety. 

Mental health professionals aren’t able to hold someone in a hospital setting unless they’re suffering from acute symptoms, according to Barber. When someone’s in the custody of the department, it has to follow regulations that have nothing to do with public safety or whether someone’s been accused of committing a crime, Barber said. 

But what happens to people when they aren’t in need of acute care? 

Pronto has been in jail for about three years, though he was not convicted of the alleged murder. Over that period of time, he has refused about 13 competency evaluations, Carroll said. And while he remains incompetent to stand trial, his legal case can’t be resolved. Instead, it has been revisited in family court a few times a year, according to Carroll. 

“It’s really hard on the victims to do that,” Caroll said — every court date derails her life for a few days. 

Almost all other states have facilities for people like Pronto. Vermont may be the only state without one, according to Barber. 

In those facilities, similar to a prison, people can be held behind locked doors and aren’t allowed to leave. And in some circumstances, staff are permitted to physically restrain people or give them medication involuntarily. 

At those facilities, people can undergo a competency restoration program with the hope they might eventually be able to stand trial. But some may never be competent to stand trial, Barber said.  

What those facilities look like varies from state to state. 

Under the new bill, S.193, Vermont’s proposed facility would hold people who are incompetent to stand trial or not guilty by reason of insanity only if they do not meet the clinical threshold for psychiatric hospitalization. And people could only be sent to the facility if they were facing a life sentence for the crimes they were accused of. 

Even with the proposed facility, Barber said that anyone who needs hospital-level clinical treatment could still get that treatment in a psychiatric hospital. 

For years, lawmakers have tried to create similar facilities in Vermont, but the bills proposed have been held up or walked back. A bill in 2024 sought to create a similar facility, but the proposal was scratched by lawmakers before the bill, filled with other measures, was made into a law. Other laws have created similar locked mental health facilities, but they serve different populations. 

This year’s bill, though, would put the facility under the purview of the Vermont Department of Corrections, rather than the Department of Mental Health. That’s an important distinction, Barber said, because the Mental Health Department has tighter clinical restrictions on how it can operate and treat patients. 

“I do understand the need to segregate someone who’s committed a violent offense from the surrounding community,” said Sen. Ginny Lyons, D-Chittenden Southeast, the bill’s lead sponsor, who also chairs the Senate Health and Welfare Committee. But she also doesn’t want to see those people in a facility like a prison, she said. 

To Rep. Anne Donahue, I-Northfield, a facility to serve the population covered by the bill is completely unnecessary. Donahue, a longtime mental health advocate, doesn’t believe there’s a gap in the current system. 

People who are in need of clinical treatment are sent into the proper medical setting, she said. And under existing state laws, someone who is a threat to public safety can already be funneled into the custody of the Department of Corrections, according to Donahue. 

Restoring someone’s competency should be treated as a completely different matter, Donahue said, and doesn’t have to be done in a locked facility. 

She’s concerned that someone can be committed to the facility as long as the court orders them there, she said. That allows the court to “take away their liberties at a much lower threshold,” Donahue said. 

Lyons said last year’s bill to create a similar facility originally grouped together people who have mental illnesses and people with disabilities and tried to treat them the same. 

“They’re distinctly different health care worlds,” Lyons said. People with mental illnesses can often be brought to a state of better health through counseling and medication, but treating disabilities like dementia is different, she said. 

She wants to make sure “we’re serving the perpetrator well, but we’re also respecting the rights of victims,” Lyons said. 

“That’s what’s been driving this conversation,” she said.