Sec. 1. 15 MRSA §103, as corrected by RR 1995, c. 2, §27 and amended by PL 2001, c. 354, §3 and PL 2003, c. 689, Pt. B, §7, is further amended to read:

§103. Commitment following acceptance of negotiated insanity

plea or following verdict or finding of insanity

When a respondent court accepts a negotiated plea of not criminally responsible by reason of insanity when a defendant is found not criminally responsible by reason of mental disease or mental defect the insanity by jury verdict and or court finding, the judgment must so state. In that case those cases the court shall order the person committed to the custody of the Commissioner of Health and Human Services to be placed in an appropriate institution for the mentally ill or the mentally retarded for care and treatment. Upon placement in the appropriate institution and in the event of transfer from one institution to another of persons committed under this section, notice of the placement or transfer must be given by the commissioner to the committing court.

As used in this section, "not criminally responsible by reason of insanity" has the same meaning as in Title 17-A, section 39 and includes any comparable plea, finding or verdict in this State under former section 102; under a former version of Title 17-A, section 39; under former Title 17-A, section 58; or under former section 17-B, chapter 149 of the Revised Statutes of 1954.

Sec. 2. 15 MRSA §104-A, sub-§1, as corrected by RR 1995, c. 2, §28 and amended by PL 2001, c. 354, §3 and PL 2003, c. 689, Pt. B, §§6 and 7, is further amended to read:

1. Release and discharge. The term "release," as used in this section, means termination of institutional in-patient residency and return to permanent residency in the community. The head of the institution in which a person is placed, under section 103, shall, annually, forward to the Commissioner of Health and Human Services a report containing the opinion of a staff psychiatrist as to the mental conditions of that person, stating specifically whether the person may be released or discharged without likelihood that the person will cause injury to that person or to others due to mental disease or mental defect. The report must also contain a brief statement of the reasons for the opinion. The commissioner shall immediately file the report in the Superior Court for the county in which the person is hospitalized committed. The court shall review each report and, if it is made to appear by the report that any person