Involuntarily committing a psychiatric patient is the only area of the law that allows the state to deprive an individual of liberty based upon something they may do in the future, as opposed to something they have already done in the past. This unique circumstance calls for psychiatrists to be prescient, determining if a mentally ill individual will pose a danger to self or others at some point in the future. Hence, the commitment process forces the law to balance the competing interests of, on the one hand the individual’s liberty interest, and on the other protecting either society from dangerous individuals, or a severely ill person from themselves.
Since the deprivation of liberty is a significant impingement on one’s due process rights the U.S. Supreme Court requires regular access to courts for involuntarily confined psychiatric patients.1 The Supreme Court, however, has left to the states exactly when and how often to conduct these judicial hearings. In New York, the Mental Hygiene Law calls for frequent and regular court hearings requiring hospitals to be ever mindful of deadlines and dates.
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