Mental Health Law Report articles from March 2004

Mental Health Law Report archives from March 2004

'Mentally ill' no more.(Language rules)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... 'MENTALLY ILL' NO MORE. Advocates in Washington state want to mandate the use of politically correct language through a bill that calls for "people first" language in new or revised legislation. The bill would change such phrases as "mentally...

Uncertain boundary.(Slants & Trends)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... UNCERTAIN BOUNDARY. John Hinckley, who attempted to take the life of President Ronald Reagan 23 years ago, doesn't know the difference between fame and infamy, according to his doctors. But the most recent court decision on Hinckley does not...

Stabilizing disorders, not past behavior, define Hinckley decision to allow visits.(U.S. v. Hinckley, John Hinckley permitted to go out on unsupervised visits with his parents)
March 1, 2004... * (U.S. v. Hinckley, Criminal No. 81-0306 (PLF), U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia): The attempted assassin of President Ronald Reagan was free to leave a psychiatric hospital because the time he would be gone was not long...

Court clarifies how to determine payees in state involuntary commitment cases.(Re Application of Macgilvray, appointment of a representative payee for an individual eligible for Supplemental Security Income benefits solely on the basis of diability and drug addiction or alcoholism)
March 1, 2004... * (In Re Application of Macgilvray, Index No. 9859/03, Supreme Court of New York, Special Term, Suffolk County): Only the Social Security Administration (SSA) could designate a representative payee, but that does not deprive the SSA of...

Mass transit benefit for mental illness applied before law expanded program.(Re Staten Island Alliance for the Mentally Ill v. Tolbert, New York)
March 1, 2004... * (In Re Staten Island Alliance for the Mentally Ill v. Tolbert, 692N, Supreme Court of New York, Appellate Division, First Department): A mass transit program that provides reduced fares to people with physical disabilities and mental...

Moving patient to alternative facility does not necessitate right to appeal.(Dyous v. Psychiatric Security Review Board, Connecticut)
March 1, 2004... * (Dyous v. Psychiatric Security Review Board, SC 16925, Supreme Court of Connecticut): The trial court properly determined that it lacked subject-matter jurisdiction to consider an appeal of a decision to transfer a man to a...

Court upholds commitment of woman called 'oppositional toward authority'.(Patient compliances cases, district court order overruled, North Dakota)
March 1, 2004... * (In the Interest of K.P./Trinidad v. K.P., No. 20030175, Supreme Court of North Dakota): A "specific level of intent" is not required to find someone noncompliant with a treatment order and thus eligible for involuntary commitment, the...

Restrictions against independent living lifted from rules in Florida community.(Symons v. Sanibel)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... An 82-year-old man in Sanibel, Fla., who faced eviction from a subsidized apartment because the property management company said he needed too much help has been able to renew his lease, thanks to a lawsuit filed by AARP and the Bazelon Center...

Louisiana settlement seen as victory for people seeking community care.(Barthelemy v. Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Louisiana has finally reached a settlement in a three-year-old legal dispute that will provide more community-based personal-care options to low-income residents who are elderly or have physical or mental disabilities. The settlement was...

Texas executions.(Supreme court ruling on execution of inmaates with mental retardation, implications for state laws)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... TEXAS EXECUTIONS. Since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled a year and a half ago that executing inmates with mental retardation is unconstitutional, Texas' appellate courts have been inundated with more than 40 appeals from inmates on death row now...

Advocates await crucial decision on right to sue under ADA Title II.(Supreme Court, Tennessee v. Lane 124 S. Ct. 1978, 2004, Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 )
March 1, 2004... An upcoming court decision could guarantee the right to sue states under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), an important protection that mental health legal advocates seek to preserve. The disability-law experts MHLR talked to in...

Narrow ruling possible in Lane case; basic rights bring more legal scrutiny.(Supreme Court, Tennessee v. Lane 124 S. Ct. 1978, 2004, implications for mentally ill)
March 1, 2004... Rulings interpreting the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) almost always apply to people with mental illness--but the next big decision from the U.S. Supreme Court could leave them out. Even if the high court upholds the liability of...

Chalk one up for Bush.(National Council on Disability, endorsement, presidential elections)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... CHALK ONE UP FOR BUSH--The National Council on Disability (NCD) has stirred up the U.S. disability community a bit by commending the Bush administration for its support of ADA. The council--which is an independent federal agency whose members...

Executing juveniles.(Roper versus Simmons, parallel drawn with Atkins versus Virginia, a case of mentally retarded persons)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... EXECUTING JUVENILES--On Jan. 26, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to consider whether states have the option of executing 16- and 17-year-old offenders. Defendant Christopher Simmons was sentenced to death in Missouri for a murder he committee...

Pryor appointment riles.(William Pryor, Alabama Attorney General, mental health law advocates)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... PRYOR APPOINTMENT RILES--Mental health law advocates are among those who are up in arms over President Bush's "recess appointment" of Alabama Attorney General William Pryor to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, because of what many...

New SSA law protects beneficiaries from devious representative payees.(Social Security Prevention Act)
March 1, 2004... President Bush has signed into law a bill to clean up the representative-payee system and offer more protections to recipients of disability benefits. The most well-known provision of the Social Security Prevention Act (H.R. 743) is one...

Right to sue, etc.(Patient Protection Act of 2004)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... RIGHT TO SUE, ETC.--Raising the ghost of legislation that dominated debate on Capitol Hill just a few years ago, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) re-introduced a version of the Patients' Bill of Rights on Feb. 17. The new Patient Protection Act of...

Antidepressants for kids.(United States Food and Drug Administration hearings, public opinion)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... ANTIDEPRESSANTS FOR KIDS--Hearings conducted last month by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have fanned the flames in the public debate over whether antidepressants for children do more harm than good. A majority of parents and other...

New internal reason cited for slowness in processing federal disability claims.
March 1, 2004... The General Accounting Office (GAO) has uncovered yet another reason why federal disability claims do not get processed very quickly: because of problems with the recruitment and turnover of claims examiners. Although GAO is Congress'...