California Governor Gavin Newsom signed legislation narrowing the state's mental health diversion law, ending a policy that critics say allowed defendants charged with serious crimes, including child abuse, to sidestep prison by entering treatment programs. The measure passed the legislature with what the New York Post described as sweeping bipartisan support.
The new law removes the presumption that eligible defendants should receive diversion into community-based mental health treatment. It grants judges full discretion to evaluate whether diversion would endanger public safety, including whether it could increase the likelihood of physical injury or other serious harm. Under the original law, in effect since 2018, judges were generally required to grant diversion if a qualifying mental illness significantly contributed to the crime and the defendant was not deemed an unreasonable risk.
That framework left judges with little room to say no. And the consequences played out in courtrooms across California for years, most visibly in the case of Zack Scrivner, a former Kern County Supervisor charged in February 2025 with felony child abuse and possession of assault weapons.
Prosecutors alleged Scrivner climbed into bed with a child while under the influence of drugs and touched the child inappropriately. He was not charged with child sexual assault, a factual distinction the reporting makes explicit, but the allegations were severe enough to provoke public outrage when Scrivner was granted mental health diversion.
His own son, Robert Scrivner, went public. At a February 2025 press conference hosted by State Sen. Shannon Grove, Robert Scrivner delivered a statement that cut through the legal abstractions:
"My own father, who is an elected official in Kern County, assaulted my siblings and myself and was granted mental health diversion."
That press conference became a turning point. Grove, a Republican, introduced Senate Bill 1373 in response, seeking to bar people accused of certain violent crimes, including attempted murder of a child, assault resulting in death, and domestic violence, from qualifying for diversion.
The governor's office has faced no shortage of legal and political scrutiny in recent months. A guilty plea by former Newsom aide Dana Williamson has raised questions about the governor's inner circle, and the timing of this signing, as part of a broader legislative and budget package, invites the obvious question of whether Newsom was motivated by policy conviction or political necessity.
California's mental health diversion statute, enacted in 2018, was designed with a defensible goal: route defendants with genuine mental illness into treatment rather than incarceration. But the law's structure tilted the scales. Judges were generally required to grant diversion to eligible defendants if a qualifying mental illness significantly contributed to the offense and the defendant was not deemed an unreasonable risk to public safety.
In practice, that standard proved far too permissive. Critics dubbed it the "Epstein loophole", a label that stuck in Sacramento and in headlines. Defendants facing serious felony charges could invoke the provision and, in many cases, walk out of court with a treatment plan instead of a sentence.
Assemblymember Stephanie Nguyen, an Elk Grove Democrat who authored the signed legislation, framed the problem in blunt terms:
"Even if a judge believes diversion is not appropriate, they may still be forced to grant it. That's not justice. It's not fair to victims, and it's not fair to communities who expect the courts to keep them safe."
Opponents of the reform pushed back. The Ella Baker Center for Human Rights argued that "removing the option is a step backward for California, eliminating much-needed flexibility and discretion." Critics of the bill also contended that thousands of people had used diversion programs to avoid jail while receiving treatment, though no independent verification of that figure appeared in the reporting.
Newsom, for his part, has been busy on the legislative front. He recently proposed felony penalties for ballot seizures in a Fourth of July address, signaling a governor eager to project both toughness and relevance heading into the next phase of his political career.
The bill's bipartisan support is worth noting. In a state where criminal justice legislation often splits along party lines, the diversion reform drew backing from both Democrats and Republicans. The specific vote count was not disclosed in reporting, but the characterization of "sweeping bipartisan support" suggests the margin was wide.
Grove's Senate Bill 1373 targeted specific violent offenses. Her statement laid out the scope plainly:
"My bill will ensure that those who commit violent crimes, such as attempted murder of a child, assault resulting in death and domestic violence, are no longer eligible for a mental health diversion program."
Whether SB 1373 was the precise bill Newsom signed, or whether the final legislation combined elements from multiple measures, remains unclear from available reporting. The bill number of the signed law was not specified.
What is clear is the policy shift. Under the new framework, diversion is no longer presumed. Judges can now weigh the full picture, the nature of the offense, the defendant's history, and the risk to the community, before deciding whether treatment is appropriate. That is a significant change from a system that effectively told judges to approve diversion unless they could articulate a specific, narrow reason not to.
Newsom's statement framed the move as a balance between treatment and accountability. As he put it: "California believes treatment and accountability go hand in hand. We are proud to preserve mental health diversion for people who can benefit from it while ensuring judges have the discretion they need to protect victims, safeguard communities, and make decisions based on the full picture before them."
That language is careful, and deliberately so. Newsom did not disavow diversion entirely. He positioned the reform as a refinement, not a reversal. Whether that framing holds up will depend on how judges exercise their new discretion and whether prosecutors use the expanded authority aggressively.
The signing comes at a moment when Newsom faces scrutiny well beyond criminal justice policy. A DOJ probe targeting Newsom and his wife has cast a shadow over his administration, and the governor has not responded quietly, he has publicly lashed out at reporters and the DOJ as the FBI corruption investigation has intensified.
Against that backdrop, signing a tough-on-crime bill with bipartisan support looks like smart politics. It gives Newsom a talking point on public safety at a time when his administration's credibility is under sustained pressure on other fronts.
But the question that hangs over this reform is the same one that hangs over most late-arriving fixes: why did it take so long? The diversion law has been on the books since 2018. The problems it created were not hidden. Defendants charged with violent felonies were walking into treatment programs while victims and their families watched. It took the spectacle of a county supervisor allegedly abusing his own children, and his son standing at a podium to say so publicly, to generate the political will for change.
Several important details remain unresolved. The current status of Zack Scrivner's criminal case is not addressed in reporting. Whether his diversion was formally granted, and under what terms, rests on his son's public statement rather than independently confirmed court records. The specific crimes excluded from diversion eligibility under the new law, beyond those Grove listed in her SB 1373 statement, are not spelled out.
The Ella Baker Center's objection, that the reform eliminates flexibility, deserves a fair hearing, but only up to a point. Flexibility that allows a judge to send a man charged with felony child abuse into a treatment program instead of a courtroom is not flexibility. It is a system that has lost its grip on the difference between mercy and negligence.
The new law restores judicial discretion. That is the right call. But discretion only matters if judges use it, and if prosecutors push for accountability in cases that warrant it. California's track record on both counts gives no one reason for confidence.
When it takes seven years and a father's own son standing before cameras to fix a law this broken, the signing ceremony is not a victory lap. It is an admission.
