Law and Psychology Commons^™

O'Connor V. Donaldson: The Death Of The Quid Pro Quo Argument For A Right To Treatment, Thomas P. Bliss

Cleveland State Law Review

On June 26, 1975, the Supreme Court was confronted with the controversial issue of whether there is a constitutionally guaranteed right to treatment for nondangerous persons who have been involuntarily and civilly committed to mental institutions. The Court avoided this long advocated issue and created the potential for future litigation by holding that a state cannot constitutionally confine a nondangerous individual solely for custodial care if such person can live safely in the outside world, without a finding of more than mere mental illness. This comment will discuss the decision in terms of the most volatile and frequently urged constitutional …

On The Voluntary Admission Of Minors, Louis Lessem

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The past several years have been witness to dramatic changes in both the theory and practice of civil commitment. In the law, this development has taken the form of increased concern for the protection of the personal liberties of the mentally ill while among members of the medical profession it has been experienced as a part of the process of opening up the back wards. Legislatures in many states have responded by revising their mental health statutes to establish more rigorous standards for commitment, periodic review of the status of committed patients, and better procedural safeguards throughout the commitment process. …

The Constitutional Right To Free Communication Of The Institutionalized Resident, Lawrence O. Gostin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article comes from the notes and comments section of the North Carolina Central Law Journal from 1973.

Justified by the generic first amendment protection to unabridged expression and association, a United States citizen cannot be unreasonably denied the right to communicate by mail; by telephone; with legal counsel; with the opposite sex; with others. In most states where such a citizen becomes "mentally ill," the person may be involuntarily civilly committed. Although there is no justification for such a commitment beyond the fact that the individual is sick and is in need of care, often the individual's first amendment …

Debate, The Right To Treatment: Encounter And Synthesis, Aaron Twerski

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Police Initiated Emergency Psychiatric Detention In Michigan, Mark F. Mehlman

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

While performing his duties a police officer may frequently be confronted with the behavior of an individual which threatens or has resulted in self-inflicted injury, or which poses an imminent threat to the safety of others. Under such circumstances an officer may determine that criminal arrest is inappropriate but that some form of restraint is necessary. Michigan has provided an alternative course of action by authorizing temporary emergency psychiatric detention of an individual whom a police officer deems to be "mentally ill and manifesting homicidal or other dangerous tendencies."

Alternatives To Civil Commitment Of The Mentally Ill: Practical Guides And Constitutional Imperatives, David L. Chambers

Articles

In 1930, Ford sold Fords only in black and states offered treatment for mental illness only in public mental hospitals. Today, new views of mental health care and mental health problems have begotten a galaxy of new treatment settings. Few cities can boast community-based programs sufficient to meet their needs, but almost all cities of any size rely increasingly on outpatient programs. The large public mental hospitals still stand, of course. Indeed, every year more people enter public hospitals than entered the year before. Over 400,000 Americans were admitted as inpatients to state and county mental hospitals last year.1 Partly …

Mental Illness And Criminal Commitment In Michigan, Grant H. Morris

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This article concentrates on one vital issue: to what extent are differences in treatment justified because of a mentally ill person's "criminal" involvement. While the article is primarily concerned with Michigan institutions and Michigan statutes, the discussion and the solutions proposed are in many respects applicable to all states of the Union. Not only must all states reevaluate their policies toward criminal commitment of the mentally ill in light of ever-changing medical and penal theory, but they must also consider the developing constitutional concepts in this area. These constitutional issues are raised here only to the extent necessary to alert …

The Language Of Involuntary Mental Hospitalization: A Study In Sound And Fury, Steven H. Levinson

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Involuntary civil commitment is the business of hospitalizing and treating, without their consent, persons whom a court, with the aid of professional diagnosticians, determines to be psychologically disturbed or mentally ill. The purpose of the present study will be to demonstrate that the medical diagnoses of mental illness which justify involuntary civil commitment are achieved on the basis of at least unreliable and at worst invalid sets of diagnostic categories and assessments. For the purpose of determining the reliability of these diagnostic findings, the author selected a representative sample of the involuntary mental hospitalization proceedings of the Wayne County Probate …

Disposition Of The Irresponsible: Protection Following Commitment, Travis H. Lewin

Michigan Law Review

Each year more of our fellow citizens are involuntarily committed to a mental institution of one sort or another than are incarcerated for the commission of a crime. To those committed, the walls and barred windows of the hospital, as well as the treatment and mode of living, are probably not significantly different from those of a prison. This is particularly the case with those confined for treatment by court order or by some special statutory procedure following acquittal of a crime on grounds of insanity. Yet these mentally ill, even after perpetrating what would otherwise have been a criminal …

Compulsory Community Care For The Mentally Ill, Beatrice K. Bleicher

Cleveland State Law Review

At the present time, the benefits of community care are limited to voluntary patients, but they should be extended to involuntary patients as well. This paper discusses the need for compulsory community care and the steps taken to meet this need in a few states and in Britain. Finally, it proposes legislation which could cope with the problems of providing community care for the civilly committed.

Courts-Scope Of Authority-Sterilization Of Mental Defectives, William R. Warnock

Michigan Law Review

Respondent, age nineteen, appeared before the probate court of Muskingum County, Ohio, upon an affidavit filed by her mother alleging the child to be feeble-minded and in need of medical treatment. Results of psychological tests were presented at the hearing, revealing that respondent had an intelligence quotient of thirty-six and was therefore a feeble-minded person within the statutory definition. Respondent had had one illegitimate child, for whom she was unable to provide even rudimentary care or financial support, and was physically capable of bearing more children. Taking judicial notice that the state mental hospitals were then overcrowded and unable to …

Legal, Medical And Psychiatric Considerations In The Control Of Prostitution, B. J. George Jr.

Michigan Law Review

In common with other nations of the world the United States today as in the past is faced with the problem of controlling prostitution, particularly in urban areas. At one time or another states and cities in the United States have experimented with the classic methods of controlling prostitution: reglementation, segregation and repression. Reglementation of individual houses or prostitutes has never been carried out on a statewide basis in any state in the United States, though one can find instances in certain large cities in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in which city ordinances or de facto police regulations …

Psychological Assessment Of Brain Damage, Bill J. Barkley

Cleveland State Law Review

We need more emphasis upon courses in Forensic Psychology in our law schools as well as in our graduate departments of psychology. The average clinical psychologist shies away from involving himself in cases that might eventually lead to testifying. The psychologist is not trained to answer with a "Yes" or a "No" and therefore is not accustomed to this procedure in the court room. In my estimation it is time that the clinical psychologist is helped to grow up legally, by having a better understanding of forensics, and it is time the legal profession is helped to grow up by …

Private Responsibility For The Costs Of Care In Public Mental Institutions, David W. Mernitz

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Criminal Law - Insane Persons - Influence Of Mental Illness On The Parole Return Process, David G. Davies S.Ed., John H. Hess M.D.

Michigan Law Review

Defendants in the criminal process are divided into rigidly exclusive categories of mental health. The competent to stand trial are first separated from the incompetent. Then the competent are divided on the basis of their mental state at the time of their acts between the "sane" and the "insane." As long as these rigid categories are administered in an adversary trial system, some misdirection of victims of serious mental illness into the penal system is almost inevitable. Even where mental illness might otherwise prevent conviction, those accused of non-capital felonies are not likely to raise the question, and few courts …

Group For The Advancement Of Psychiatry: Confidentiality And Privileged Communication In The Practice Of Psychiatry, Henry Weihofen

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Confidentiality and Privileged Communication in the Practice of Psychiatry. Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry.

Commitment Of The Mentally Ill: Problems Of Law And Policy, Hugh Alan Ross

Michigan Law Review

A number of recent events makes it timely to reconsider certain aspects of the relation between psychiatry and the law. In the past decade, both the public and the legal profession have been increasingly concerned with the impact of mental illness on the law. In 1952, an outstanding text, Psychiatry and The Law, was published as the joint effort of a lawyer and a psychiatrist. Two years later the Durham case laid down a new test of insanity in criminal cases, rejecting the M'Naghten rule. Interest in the case resulted in a host of law review articles, symposiums, and …

Mental Illness And The Law Of Contracts, Robert M. Brucken S.Ed., David L. Genger S.Ed., Denis T. Rice S.Ed., Mark Shaevsky S.Ed., William R. Slye S.Ed., Robert P. Volpe S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

The traditional and most important problem relative to mental illness and the contract is the situation created when mental illness exists at the time of agreement (the problem of contractual capacity). One principal result of mental illness at this time may be the avoidance of the contract by the mentally ill person. Since case law in this area is extensive, the major portion of the study is concerned with this problem (parts II, III and IV) and the effects of such incapacity throughout the remaining course of the contract. Mental illness occurring after agreement and at the time of performance …

Macdonald: Psychiatry And The Criminal, Raymond L. Carol

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Psychiatry and the Criminal By John M. MacDonald.

Alcoholism And The Law, Melvin L. Selzer

Michigan Law Review

The American public has recently been subjected to a deluge of articles and books on the subject of alcoholism. While these contributions have been filled with valuable information, certain omissions have been noticeable. These omitted facts are of vital significance to any one wanting to gain insight into the broad problem of alcoholism. The first omission is a failure to stress that no one-or almost no one-knows who is alcoholic. This may include the alcoholic himself. It is a point of considerable importance in determining the proper disposition of certain criminal cases.

Evidence - Physician - Patient Privilege - Applicability To Communication Between State Mental Hospital Psychiatrist And Criminal Internee, Norman A. Zilber S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Defendant was committed to a public mental hospital before standing trial on an indictment for robbery. One year later he was brought to trial after being discharged from the hospital as mentally competent. His only defense was insanity. The psychiatrist who had been appointed by the court to examine the defendant testified in support of this defense. The prosecution, in turn, introduced the testimony of the hospital psychiatrist who had attended the defendant during his internment. This psychiatrist was instructed by the trial court that communications between him and the defendant were not privileged. Accordingly, he testified that the defendant …

Hospitalization Of The Voluntary Mental Patient, Hugh A. Ross

Michigan Law Review

In 1949, the last year for which accurate statistics are available, 390,567 persons were admitted to mental hospitals in the United States. Total annual cost of mental illness, including loss of earnings, has been estimated to be over a billion dollars a year. Although the problems involved in admission of the mentally ill patient to a hospital are usually thought of in terms of formal involuntary commitment proceedings, there is an increasing awareness of the desirability of provision for voluntary procedures which would encourage prompt and effective medical care. Voluntary admission is not a form of commitment, although it may …

Confinement Of The Insane, Thomas M. Cooley

Articles

The time is almost within the memory of living persons when it was deemed not only lawful but proper to confine persons afflicted with mental disease in dungeons and with chains, and to subject them to beating, at the discretion of their keepers, in order to subdue their senseless fury and drive away their delusions.1 The notions of an ignorant and barbarous age justified such treatment, but the common law on the subject has been so much modified in the greater intelligence of the present century that opinions as to how much of the old rules remain must be expressed …