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Show Sanity Hearings Hit $9230 By MARK D. MICKELSEN FARMINGTON The Davis County Auditor's office is investigating the reasons behind a mysterious myste-rious $9,230 bill charged to the county several weeks ago for sanity hearings. ' ' UNLIKE MOST bills the county receives on a day to day basis, this one caught the immediate attention of Auditor Ludeen Gibbons and a couple of inquiring county commissioners. The reason: Past sanity hearings cost the county an average of $30-$75 per case. The newest bill, totalling well over $9,000 is for only three such cases. ACCORDING to Mrs. Gibbons, the county traditionally tradi-tionally makes the sanity hearing checks out to Utah County, because patients from Davis County are transferred to the State Mental Hospital in Provo for evaluation. But she said she has never had to deal with a cost factor like the one that has come up. "I ONLY set up $4,000 total in the budget for sanity hearings." Baffled by the sudden increase, Mrs. Gibbons reflected re-flected back on previous years and went looking for some answers in the case. She said "now and then we do have an attorney on the hearings that has a meeting with the client," but noted that the increase is not totally justified. THE ONLY change in the billing procedure for psychological evaluations is that the checks are sent directly to the mental hospital, rather than to the Utah County Auditor, she said. In his six months as Second District Court Judge, Douglas Cornaby said he has not come across one single sanity hearing. In fact, the judge said he is not sure if the incidence of sanity hearings is on the increase or decrease. HE SAID the court usually appoints two psychiatrists psychiat-rists for the trial and noted that the county ends up paying for their services when the trial is over. "You could have an unusual case that's hard fought," Judge Cornaby said, and spend $9,000 all on that one case. RESPONDING to the county's concern over sanity san-ity hearings, he said most people charge with a crime shy away from the sensationalized "guilty by insanity" insan-ity" plea. "People don't like to go for that," he said. IF CONVICTED on a plea of insanity. Judge Cornaby Cor-naby said most Utahns will spend more years hospitalized hospit-alized than they would have in prison. "They're too smart to do it." MEANWHILE, the auditing department is investigating investi-gating the surge in costs for sanity hearings. Referring to the recent billing from Utah County, Mrs. Gibbons says, "apparently, that's the way it is." A CHECK for $9,230 was sent out last week by county officials. |