BAKERSFIELD \u2014 A challenge to the mental health diversion program granted to former Kern County Supervisor Zack Scrivner is still pending and awaiting a judge\u2019s decision.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Following a formatting error on the initial petition, the California Attorney General\u2019s Office resubmitted a petition for a writ of mandate challenging the Kern County Superior Court\u2019s Dec. 11 ruling granting Scrivner a mental health program.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, the clerk of the Fifth District Court of Appeal in Fresno said the AG\u2019s office application was under review by a judge, but there was no timeframe in which a response could be expected.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Scrivner is accused of inappropriately touching one of his children while high on drugs during an incident at his Tehachapi home in April 2024. Scrivner\u2019s attorney, H.A. Sala, has long said the charges can\u2019t be proved.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sala told The Californian on Wednesday the petition had been rejected, but the AG\u2019s office confirmed that the initial submission contained a formatting error and the complaint had been resubmitted.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The petition focused not on the felony child endangerment charges, but rather on the two felony weapons charges that had been filed. According to the petition \u2014 much of which is redacted \u2014 Scrivner\u2019s mental health issues did not contribute to the weapons offenses.<\/p>\n
If Scrivner was ineligible for a mental health diversion program on those counts, the petition said, then he should be ineligible on all counts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe clear and convincing evidence \u2014 including defendant\u2019s own mental health evaluation \u2014 establishes that the mental health disorders had no relationship to the assault weapon offenses,\u201d the petition said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSo long as an accusatory pleading includes ineligible offenses, diversion should be denied as to any component charge of that pleading. Put differently, diversion should not be granted in a case which includes any charges that are ineligible for diversion.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, Sala called that interpretation \u201cnonsense\u201d and said it was significant the state was not challenging that mental health was a contributing factor in the child endangerment charges.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BAKERSFIELD \u2014 A challenge to the mental health diversion program granted to former Kern County Supervisor Zack Scrivner…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":186866,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[151,153,152,7,729,723,724,720,14059,719,735,721,47803,725],"class_list":{"0":"post-186865","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bakersfield","8":"tag-bakersfield","9":"tag-bakersfield-headlines","10":"tag-bakersfield-news","11":"tag-california","12":"tag-complaint","13":"tag-crime","14":"tag-criminal-justice","15":"tag-criminal-law","16":"tag-judiciaries","17":"tag-justice","18":"tag-kern-county","19":"tag-law","20":"tag-legal-procedure","21":"tag-public-law"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}