Skip to comments.Disability Rights - ACLU Position/Briefing Paper (Blood on Their Hands)
Posted on 12/17/2012 7:31:56 PM PST by 11th_VA
...Finally, and thanks in part to the inspiration provided by the civil rights struggles of the 1960's, disability rights advocates began to press for full legal equality and access to mainstream society. Through lobbying and litigation, laws were passed and rights established ...
Too many disabled people are still institutionalized, despite the fact that the care they need can be provided within their communities...
In 1994, four young law graduates successfully charged that the Florida State Bar application, which required the disclosure of information about any mental health treatment that applicants received at any point in their lives, violated the ADA....
...In 1994, Eddie Dzura, a 33-year-old man who has Down syndrome, ... was then refused admission to a merry-go-round because he had a mental disability. He and his father filed a successful lawsuit under the ADA, and the park was forced to change its discriminatory practice....
The ACLU and other advocacy organizations will continue to fight for the rights of people with disabilities, in the courts, in Congress, and elsewhere.
(Excerpt) Read more at aclu.org ...
The ACLU wrote up a pamphlet for Connecticut to advise folks facing forced hospitalization of how to avoid that ~ and stay on the streets.
There was a case here in Jackson Michigan in the summer of 2011 where a guy killed an elderly neighbor and cut her head off.
It turned out that his family had tried to have him locked up for years due to his mental health issues but the courts wouldn’t or couldn’t do it. The family finally washed their hands of him with a final warning to the courts that someone was going to die.
Today, as a result of the self-advocacy movement and a series of constitutional test cases, people with mental disabilities have many more rights than they used to, including:
-the right not to be confined unless they constitute a danger to themselves or others;
-the right to a court hearing to contest an involuntary commitment;
-the right to a lawyer during commitment hearings;
-the right to refuse medication;
-the right to “minimally adequate” treatment and training;
-the right to safe and secure conditions, including food, shelter, clothing and medical care.
Yeah...when a family tries to lock a family member up in an institution, they probably have insight to the family member’s troubles that others do not.
The guy had been hospitalized in the past but when he became an adult it became almost impossible. Add the fact that he has a phD. and the courts will practically laugh in your face for suggesting that they could be mentally ill.
He killed the old woman with a hammer because she was spying on him and emanating rays at him. They found him wearing her clothes.
Any State Licensed Physician could:
Involuntarily Hospitalize a Patient for 3 Days
if they were Homicidal, Suicidal, or Gravely Disabled
After that a Tiered Judicial process ensued
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