Rochester, N.Y. — New York State Supreme Court Judge Thomas Moran ruled last week that one of the state's strongest gun laws is unconstitutional.
The Extreme Risk Protection Order law, also known as the Red Flag law, allows law enforcement to temporarily seize a person's guns based on someone else making a written allegation in a petition to a judge that the person poses a harm to themself or others.
Payton Gendron recently pleaded guilty to murder and hate-motivated terrorism charges for gunning down 10 people in a racially motivated massacre at a Tops store in Buffalo earlier this year.
Less than a year before the May 14 attack, New York State Police investigated Gendron for a threat he made at his high school.
If you are so dangerously crazy that you need to be disarmed, then you need to be hospitalized. If you have access to a car or gasoline, you are still plenty dangerous without a gun.
Curiously, G.W. v. C.N. (N.Y.App. 2022) applies similar logic to both:
"Likely to engage in conduct that would result in serious harm to himself, herself, or others" has it's own special meaning in our law. CPLR §63-a directs a petitioner to MHL §9.39 for the definition of "likelihood to result in serous harm," and specifically to paragraphs one or two of subdivision (a) of section 9.39 of the Mental Hygiene Law. In relevant part, MHL §9.39 provides:
'Likelihood to result in serious harm' as used in this article shall mean: (1) substantial risk of physical harm to himself as manifested by threats of or attempts at suicide or serious bodily harm or other conduct demonstrating that he is dangerous to himself; or (2) a substantial risk of physical harm to other persons as manifested by homicidal or other [*3]violent behavior by which others are placed in reasonable fear of serious physical harm. See, MHL §9.39.Thus, CPLR 63-a and the Mental Health Law operate under the same definition of "likelihood to result in serious harm." Why should the law not treat similarly situated people the same, with the same Constitutional guarantees and protections, if both are deemed to present as having a "likelihood to result in serious harm."
The New York Legislature drafted MHL § 9.39 to provide a necessary procedure to involuntarily hospitalize a patient for care and treatment. MHL § 9.39 demands that a determination that a patient presents a "likelihood to result in serious harm" is to be made by a staff physician (emphasis added). Further, if the same patient is to be held in a facility for more than 48 hours, a second physician must confirm the first physician's findings (i.e., that the patient presents a "likelihood to result in serious harm"). See, MHL §9.39.
Turning back to 63-a, CPLR §Section 6340(2) lists the possible petitioners who may (or are required to) seek a TERPO/ERPO. The majority of petitioners in Article 63-a cases, however, are not physicians (who presumably possess a psychological or medical background to allow them to make a determination that a person possesses a condition "likely to result in serious harm"). Rather, the great majority of 63-a referrals would come from police officers, District Attorneys, school administrators (or their designees), family and household members, and even mental health professionals (not a physician or psychiatrist) who are not licensed to make a medical determination that a respondent presents a mental condition "likely to result in serious harm" under MHL §9.39.
So if someone is potentially a danger to others, the same standard applies for disarming them as involuntarily committing them, except that involuntary commitment requires doctors with presumed expertise in mental health to make the decision, not some random person.
There is still room for abuse, but applying the same standard makes sense. Crazy enough to be disarmed is likely crazy enough to be hospitalized.
By the way, New York Supreme Court is really what most states call a court of appeals. There is more variety in state court nomenclature than you would guess.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — The Colorado Springs gay nightclub shooter had charges dropped in a 2021 bomb threat case after family members who were terrorized in the incident refused to cooperate, according to the district attorney and court documents unsealed Thursday.
The charges were dropped despite authorities finding a “tub” full of bomb-making chemicals and later receiving warnings from other relatives that suspect Anderson Lee Aldrich was sure to hurt or murder a set of grandparents if freed, according to the unsealed documents.
In a letter last November to state District Court Judge Robin Chittum, the relatives painted a picture of an isolated, violent person who did not have a job and was given $30,000 that was spent largely on the purchase of 3D printers to make guns....
The grandmother’s in-laws wrote to the court in November 2021 saying that Alrich was a continuing danger and should remain incarcerated. The letter also said police tried to hold Aldrich for 72 hours after a prior response to the home, but the grandmother intervened.
“We believe that my brother, and his wife, would undergo bodily harm or more if Anderson were released. Besides being incarcerated, we believe Anderson needs therapy and counseling,” Robert Pullen and Jeanie Streltzoff wrote. They said Aldrich had punched holes in the walls of the grandparents’ Colorado home and broken windows and that the grandparents “had to sleep in their bedroom with the door locked” and a bat by the bed.
SEATTLE — King County records show that in the last four years, judges have released dozens of mentally ill defendants charged with felonies because they waited too long in jail for court-ordered mental health treatment.
In Washington, state law requires defendants deemed so mentally ill they can’t understand the charges against them receive help at a state psychiatric hospital within seven days. Currently, records show, some inmates are waiting up to nine months for a bed at Western State Hospital, run by the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS).
The record backlog has prompted judges across the state to release defendants on their own recognizance or to dismiss charges altogether, citing a violation of the defendants’ constitutional right to receive medical care while in custody.
Since 2018, charges dismissed due to long wait times include felony harassment, indecent exposure, burglary, hate crimes and assault with a deadly weapon, records show.
“This is a public safety crisis,” said Rebecca Vasquez, a senior deputy prosecuting attorney at the King County Prosecutor’s Office who specializes in these cases. “These delays are harming public safety, harming my office’s ability to do our job and prosecute cases, and harming the defendants that (DSHS is) directed to care for.”
Residents of the small, rural town of New Meadows, Idaho know all too well about the worst-case scenario when mentally ill inmates are released due to unconstitutional wait times for psychiatric help.
John Cody Hart was released from the Clark County Jail in Vancouver, Washington in July due to lack of mental health treatment in a timely manner.
In October, the 28-year-old ended up in New Meadows, Idaho – allegedly shooting and killing Rory and Sara Mehen, two pillars of the community whom he had never met.
“We are all grieving,” said New Meadows Mayor Julie Good. “How could this be happening? How is it that he is free to come into our small, quiet, beautiful community and wreak havoc not just with the family’s lives but our life? How does that happen and there’s no reason that it should have.”
Before making it to Idaho, Hart was serving time in the Clark County Jail, awaiting trial for charges of first- and second-degree assault. According to legal documents, in 2021, Hart allegedly attacked an acquaintance in a Vancouver apartment. “Unprovoked,” prosecutors said he strangled the man and tried to “rip out (his) eyes” with his thumbs.
It is almost like Washington does not want to treat the mentally ill.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced an initiative that would give the city more leeway to involuntarily hospitalize severely mentally ill people on the city's subways and streets, even if they do not appear to pose an immediate danger to others.
"My administration is determined to do more to assist people with mental illness, especially those with untreated psychotic disorders, posing a risk of harm to themselves, even if they are not an imminent threat to the public," Adams said Tuesday. "It is not acceptable for us to see someone who clearly needs help and walk past. For too long, there has been a gray area where policy, law and accountability have not been clear and this has allowed people in need to slip through the cracks."
Adams, a former police officer, said the city will be training Emergency Medical Services staff and other medical personnel to "ensure compassionate care." He said the policy he's proposing "explicitly states" when it is appropriate to use this process to hospitalize a person suffering from mental illness even if they do not want to go.
I am sure many of you share my concern about the role that severe mental illness plays in mass murder and this is not new. Out of 1916 mass murder incidents before 1960, 308 involved mental illness--the single largest category. There is also the misery of living on the street in the cold, eating out dumpsters, often the victims of violent crimes when they are the criminals. I know that many progressives object to the loss of human dignity from being hospitalized.
In a mental hospital: they will not freeze to death; they will have meals that lack mold; they will have medical care; they may even receive the mental health care to help them get their lives back on track, Where is the indignity in that?
"Aceves’ father was brought in for questioning and told investigators that Aceves had mental illness in the past and had been placed in a mental health facility twice at the age of 16.
"The father said that Aceves was prescribed medication but that he stopped taking it after a couple of years....
"Aceves’ father told police that his son had purchased an assault rifle and that family members are scared knowing he has a weapon based on his past behavior.
Federal background checks in Texas do not flag commitments to a mental institution for juveniles."
And if he had committed mass murder his previous but discontinued use of psychotropic medications would be evidence for the "SSRIs cause mass murder" crowd.
