How crime stories are shaping the remaking of California’s mental health law

In the battle over whether to change California’s crime law, supporters and critics alike are campaigning not only through crime statistics but also by citing harrowing anecdotes — including one featuring American rapper Lil Nas X.

As Gagandeep Singh for CalMatters explains, lawmakers are advancing an account it would lower the threshold a judge can use to deny a mental health diversion for people charged with certain crimes.

The bill would change a 2018 law that currently allows judges to block diversion if they find the defendant poses an “unreasonable risk of danger to public safety.” But by changing the “substantial and unreasonable risk” standard the bill proposes, it would make it easier for judges to reject diversion and send defendants to prison instead.

Supporters, who include police unions and law enforcement leaders, say it closes a loophole that allows abusers to walk free. In support of the measure, Sacramento County District Attorney Tien Ho cited multiple cases from Sacramento County in which suspects committed serious crimes after obtaining a diversion permit.

The most recent case was last year, when deputies arrested a 40-year-old man Jordan Murray for stabbing another man to death in Fair Oaks. Murray had previously been released from prison on psychiatric diversion.

But public defenders and civil liberties groups say the 2018 law is working as intended and that judges already have enough power to limit access to diversion. Illustrating the success of diversion, the California Public Defenders Association points to Lil Nas X, a prominent music artist whose real name is Montero Lamar Hill.

In 2025, the police found Hill, nearly naked, wandering the streets of Los Angeles. Officers said Hill accused them and he faces four felonies and up to five years in prison. Judge granted him a diversionsaying at the time, “When he is treated, he is much better and society is much better.”

• Kate Chatfieldassociation executive director, in an April press release: “Diversion is not a loophole. … It is a promise that the system will respond to people as human beings, that healing is possible, that crisis does not have to define life.”

The Senate Appropriations Committee will decide Thursday whether the bill will move forward.

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If your wallet is already hurting at the pump, things might work out worse over the next few weeksCalMatters’ Alejandro Lazo reports.

At a recent legislative oversight hearing, Siva Gunda, vice chairman of the California Energy Commission, said the state’s fuel supply looks stable for the next six weeks. After about mid-June, however, it will cost California — and consumers, in turn — a lot more money to secure more oil and gas.

As of this week, Californians are paying an average of $6.15 a gallon — the highest price in the country. But if the conflict in Iran drags on, the average price in California is likely to settle “below seven, more like $6.50,” Gunda said.

Severin Borenstein, an energy economist at the University of California, Berkeley, who also attended the hearing, took a more pessimistic view: If the Strait of Hormuz remains closed for another 60 days, the price of crude could increase by another $40 to $80 a barrel, he said. Each $40 increase adds about $1 more per gallon at the pump.

• Borenstein: “I know we’re all hoping that doesn’t happen and that the oil flow resumes, but the reality is that we’re on borrowed time as we draw down supplies.”

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Because California schools rate fallout from the major Canvas cyber attackat least one state lawmaker wants answers.

Teachers use the popular academic software Canvas to give tests, communicate with students, post grades, and more. Last week, a hacker group claimed to be receiving sensitive data through Canvas and demanded a ransom.

The Canvas outage has hit California particularly hard — likely affecting more than 1 million of the state’s students, CalMatters’ Colin Letcher and Mikhail Zinstein write. The hack raised serious questions about whether schools should be so dependent on centralized solutions for their online learning tools. While these services allow schools to easily manage everything on one platform, a security breach at one company also leaves multiple institutions’ data vulnerable.

The outage prompted Sen. Melissa Hurtado to seek a legislative audit of California’s heavy reliance on Canvas.

• HurtadoBakersfield Democrat: “The breach exposes the growing risks of concentrating vast amounts of student records … on one platform.”

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Following a series of investigations since 2025 by CalMatters’ Anat Rubin, who revealed the system failures of California’s public defender system, lawmakers introduced a bill that would require counties to report basic information about their public defender services, such as how many cases attorneys handle. Read more.