BoatBanter.com - View Single Post - Former Virginia Gubernatorial Candidate Assaulted in Home

Mr. Luddite

On 11/19/2013 8:47 PM, wrote:

On Tue, 19 Nov 2013 19:41:29 -0500, BAR wrote:

The sad thing is that the kid, the one who offed himself, was released because they didn't
have a bed in a pshyc facility available for him. I guess closing down all of the mental
healht care facilities and releasing all of the nut jobs in the 70's served its purpose.

That was mostly caused by a series of cases where the courts decided
involuntary commitment equated to depriving a person of liberty and
could only be imposed by due process. (14th amendment).
Subsequent laws that defined "evaluations" further restricted exactly
how long someone can be held with or without a court order.

We don't know the details of this sad event, so this is pure speculation
on my part, but it wouldn't surprise me if drug and/or alcohol addiction
is involved with Gus (the son) still in total denial.

The early reports indicate he had been released from an area hospital
Monday following a mental health evaluation. That could also have been
an overnight "detox" period followed by the mental health evaluation.

Getting a court order for involuntary commitment is difficult. Laws
protect the rights of the person in question. A shrink's evaluation
that the person "could" or "might" hurt himself or others is not
sufficient in itself to cause a judge to order an involuntary
commitment. The person has to actually hurt him/herself (attempt
suicide) or cause injury to another person in order to be involuntarily
committed in most circumstances. This was explained to me last year
when I was involved in getting someone some help for severe alcoholism.
The fact that the person in question had a blood alcohol level that is
considered "lethal" (450) and had been driving a car in a reckless
manner (endangering others) still wasn't sufficient. I was
flabbergasted to learn this, but that's the law.

If the person in question is still in a state of denial of their
addiction, but hasn't actually hurt him/herself or anyone else, it's
tough to have them involuntarily committed.

My speculation is that this may be the case in this situation. If Gus
had been determined to be an *immediate* threat to himself or others by
virtue of demonstrated action, a bed would have been found.