Los Angeles Times

September 29, 2002

Reprinted with permission.  All rights reserved.


 

DAVIS SIGNS BILL ON FORCED MENTAL CARE

 'Laura's Law' Will Allow Court-Ordered Treatment Of Mentally Ill.


By Dan Morain And Carl Ingram
Times Staff Writers

SACRAMENTO -- Gov. Gray Davis signed legislation Saturday permitting authorities to treat severely mentally ill people against their will if judges conclude that they cannot care for themselves and are likely to become dangerous.

The legislation represents a significant amendment to a state law that protects the civil rights of mentally ill people, the 30-year-old Lanterman-Petris-Short Act. The act helped lead to the emptying of state hospitals, which once housed more than 30,000 people but now care for 4,000. All but about 800 of those remaining patients have committed crimes and were sent to institutions by courts.

The legislation, Assembly Bill 1421, establishes a hearing process in which judges will determine whether the person has a history of failing to comply with treatment and has, within four years, exhibited "serious violent" behavior against others, or tried to hurt himself or herself. The individual could be represented by a public defender or a private lawyer.

Davis said he expects the measure to help reduce homelessness, hospitalization and involvement in the criminal justice system.

"This is a critical step in helping the seriously mentally ill, as well as their families," Davis said in a statement, predicting that the bill would "help end the cycle of hospitalization, quitting treatment and relapse."

Davis' decision to sign the bill marked a victory for Assemblywoman Helen Thomson (D-Davis) in her final year in the lower house. Thomson tried for five years to win approval of the measure, which was backed by law enforcement and many family members of the mentally ill. Liberals in the Legislature, siding with some patients' rights activists, had blocked its passage until this year.

Thomson called the final version of the bill "Laura's law," named for Laura Wilcox, a 19-year-old woman who worked at a Nevada County mental health facility and was killed by a man whose mental illness had gone untreated. It is similar to a New York law adopted in 1999 after a mentally ill man pushed 32-year-old Kendra Webdale into the path of a subway train.

As part of the compromise, counties will have the option of participating, and would bear the costs. People would be treated in expanded outpatient programs considered the "least restrictive" necessary to achieve recovery.

Under current law, people generally can be detained for 72 hours. In extreme cases, they can be held for six months. The law provides parents and other family members of adults who are mentally ill little or no opportunity to intervene on the individual's behalf. Thomson's bill will allow family members to testify at hearings.

"I don't think it will have any impact on the population in state hospitals," said Stephen W. Mayberg, director of the state Department of Mental Health. "Our goal is to treat people not in institutional settings."

[Remainder of article on another bill not included]

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