Tuesday, February 14, 2012
You’d be crazy to pass this bill
by Larry Geller
HB2011 is a very dangerous bill. It is vague, discriminatory, and probably unconstitutional. It criminalizes mental illness, with language vague enough that anyone who's had a bad day could end up restrained.
It’s also plenty weird. On page 16, for example, it would allow your neighbor to file a petition to have you carried away if she thought you were weird.
Any person may file a petition alleging that a person located in the county not already in involuntary treatment for whom application could be made meets the criteria for commitment to a psychiatric facility.
The bill somehow made it through its first committee hearing despite testimony against it by the ACLU and others. It comes up before the House Judiciary Committee today at 2:05 p.m. (see link above for details).
As I pointed out in my own testimony, if any member of the audience feels that lawmakers would be crazy to pass this bill, should it pass, they can then file a petition against the lawmaker, triggering a whole police/legal process.
And they would be justified. Lawmakers would have to be crazy to pass this bill. QED.
Thank you, Larry for posting this.
I am in the process of writing some testimony but another section that jumped out that is equally as frightening as the ʻcomplaintʻ aspect for involuntary commitment, is this:
"§334-71 Transfer of patients between facilities. [A] (a) Except as otherwise provided in subsection (b), a patient at a psychiatric facility, including those held on court order, may be transferred to another psychiatric facility when the administrator of the sending facility determines that it would be in the best interest of the patient that the patient be transferred and the administrator of the receiving facility agrees to accept the patient; provided that prior notice of [such] the transfer be given to the subject of [such] the transfer and to those persons specified in a current order of commitment. If there is no current order of commitment, notice shall be given to those persons [enumerated] designated in section 334-60.4.
This looks to me like there may another agenda going on here such as the prison for profit and since Hawaii has failed miserably in caring for psychiatric patients and shut down the State institution for private interests, this may be another rendition-for-profit-scheme AND A DREAM COME TRUE PHARMACEUTICAL EXPERIMENTATION HOTBED in stateside facilities. Dear God.
Anyway, the bright side is maybe some of these legislators can be involuntarily committed through ʻcomplaintsʻ.
: February 15, 2012 at 9:42:00 AM HST Yes, that is a very problematic section. There were others, and great weaknesses in the definitions, etc.
You make good points, thank you.
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