FL H1505

Eliminates Florida's traditional insanity defense and replaces it with a narrower "lack of culpable mental state" defense, allowing mental disease or defect as a defense only when it prevents the defendant from forming the required criminal intent

Requires experts evaluating a defendant's mental competence to administer a clinically recognized malingering assessment instrument and include results in their report

Removes mental disorder treatment needs as a mitigating circumstance that can justify sentencing below the lowest permissible sentence under the Criminal Punishment Code

Allows courts to incorporate specialized mental health treatment into a convicted defendant's sentence, but prohibits such treatment from being used as grounds for a downward departure from sentencing guidelines

Takes effect October 1, 2026