Va. House to Review Psychiatric Care Gaps

Saltzberg, who took over at New River last year, said a board representative used to be present for commitment hearings to help with treatment plans, but a lack of funding and resources stopped the practice several years ago.

Joe Painter, who said he presided over 15,000 mental health commitment hearings while serving as a special justice in Blacksburg from 1989 to 2000, dismissed as "naive" Saltzberg's contention that the board didn't know about Cho.

"The law requires them to set up the specific course of treatment," Painter said. "I want to know when and why they unlearned the law."

At a meeting today, Saltzberg said he and Barnett will seek to improve communication between the court and the agency.

"We're going to work with the special justice to figure out what the best way is to do this," Saltzberg said in an interview Thursday. "Based on our mutual cooperation, we'll figure out a way to make sure that nobody gets lost."

Hamilton said the legislative hearings will focus heavily on the role of community services boards.

But because the committee doesn't have subpoena power, Hamilton said it won't delve too deeply into the case of Cho, whose records are protected under privacy laws.

He said he will leave specific questions about Cho to the eight-member Tech Review Panel, which Kaine created to study the shooting and the state's response.

That review has been hampered by state and federal privacy laws that prevent Virginia Tech and providers of mental health services from releasing Cho's medical and academic records.

Cho's parents, as the executors of his estate, might be able to authorize the release of some records, but officials say they are out of the country.

Retired State Police superintendent W. Gerald Massengill, chairman of the review panel, said the committee might have to seek a court order to get the information.

"We will do whatever we have to do to get those records, and if that means a court order, subpoena, whatever, then certainly we have to look at that," Massengill said.

Massengill said panel members are debating how far into Cho's past they need to go to get a better understanding of his illness.

"At the very least, we have to know what happened since his issues were identified at Virginia Tech in 2005," Massengill said.

"I would think to really get at these root causes, we may want to go back much farther than that."

Staff writer Brigid Schulte contributed to this report. Jenkins and Schulte reported from Washington.