AI-generated summary. We recommend consulting the bill text for important decisions.

Changes to Utah's competency evaluation process — used to determine whether a criminal defendant is mentally fit to stand trial — make up the core of this bill. It requires that when a court orders two competency evaluations, both must be issued in the same court order. It allows courts to order the Department of Health and Human Services to conduct additional or updated evaluations if circumstances change or new information arises. It permits a defendant to be temporarily moved to a clinical or inpatient setting for their evaluation, if the department recommends it and notifies the court and parties. The bill also creates new rules for "involuntary medication order portability," meaning that when a defendant who is being medicated without their consent is transferred between facilities — such as from a jail to a psychiatric hospital — the original medication order stays in effect, but the receiving facility must conduct its own medical review and document that continuing the medication is appropriate, safe, and in the person's best interest before doing so.