Law Commons^™

The Search For Due Process In Civil Commitment Hearings: How Procedural Realities Have Altered Substantive Standards, Christyne E. Ferris

Vanderbilt Law Review

The civil commitment of mentally ill individuals presents the legal system with an intractable question: When should the law deprive someone of the fundamental right to liberty based on a prediction of future dangerousness? Advocates of both increased and decreased levels of civil commitment offer compelling case studies to help resolve the question. The former point to high profile events like the Virginia Tech shooting, in which mandatory incapacitation of the perpetrator at the first sign of mental illness could have prevented a senseless tragedy. The latter highlight the lives of individuals like Kenneth Donaldson, whose father had him committed …

Legislative "Subterfuge"?: Failing To Insure Persons With Mental Illness Under The Mental Health Parity Act And The Americans With Disabilities Act, Christopher A. Jones

Vanderbilt Law Review

The two primary problems with providing health care in the United States are cost and access., The cost of health care rose dramatically during the 1970s and 1980s and continues to increase, making coset containment crucial to the availability of care. In addition, many Americans are either entirely without health insurance or are underinsured for catastrophic illness. While individually these two issues are important, equally problematic is the tension that exists between them. Providing greater access to additional services results either in a cost increase or the loss of other services. Ultimately, however, a general plan to contain costs can …

Introduction: Current Issues In Mental Health Care - Special Edition, Tamsen D. Love

Vanderbilt Law Review

Today we think we know a lot more about mental health care than our country's founders did. Yet in many ways we are in no better position than our eighteenth-century predecessors. Certainly, the decisions we as a society face about mental illness are just as difficult. The vocabulary we employ is more complex--"behavioral health organization," "psychopharmacology," "cost containment"--but the issues are the same: Who should pay for mental health care? How much care is appropriate? And, more fundamentally, what exactly is mental health?

This year's Special Project addresses these issues. The Notes focus on particular legal issues in the mental …

Automatic And Indefinite Commitment Of Insanity Acquittees: A Procedural Straitjacket, John B. Scherling

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Recent Development suggests that the Court erroneously decided Jones. Part II examines the Supreme Court's constitutional analysis of commitment procedures and discusses postacquittal commitment in state and lower federal courts. Part III analyzes the Jones decision and the exception that it allows for the commitment of insanity acquittees. Part IV contends that prior to involuntary and indefinite commitment an insanity acquittee deserves the same standard of proof as a civil commitment candidate-proof of mental illness and dangerousness by clear and convincing evidence. Part IV also argues that absent proof by clear and convincing evidence of the acquittee's need for …