Opinion ID: 1124567
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Faulting Mental Patients for Attempting to Defend Their Legal Rights

Text: Let us recall Mr. Well seeks relief, or at least his day in court, after the better part of 17 years' incarceration in a mental hospital. Had he been found guilty of first degree assault in 1980 after a trial, or even a plea of guilty, chances are he would have been released years ago. [8] Yet Mr. Well continues his incarceration in a mental hospital for the maximum term of life! Given this scenario the majority's opinion appears to give this court's imprimatur to a psychiatric report which criticizes Mr. Well for stating he wants to sue Snohomish County for violating his legal rights and because he continues to maintain his apparently forlorn hope that `his attorney will win his release via an appeal's [sic] court decision,' opining `[i]t is unfortunate that Mr. Well continues to dwell on his legal status....' Majority at 753 (quoting State's Response to Personal Restraint Petition at Ex. 11). I assume the mental health professionals who authored and approved this report were simply stating their sincere belief, if not considered professional judgment, that Mr. Well would be the greater beneficiary of their services were he to be liberated from the distractions of our legal system which at least provide hope for eventual release. With all due respect I would counsel these professionals, if only in dissent, that their relation to Mr. Well under these involuntary and coercive circumstances must in reality be likened not only to a physician-patient relationship but also to one between a jailer and inmate. It is only reasonable that Mr. Well would seek his release through lawful means. Indeed, it might be evidence of mental illness if he did not. Be that as it may, it is hoped his custodians would credit this man with the legal rights he does still possess and willingly, if not gratefully, accept their own responsibility to facilitate their exercise. Such is, or should be, a privilege for those in positions of public responsibility. In conclusion the majority offers Mr. Well the gratuitous advice that [h]is commitment is not designed as punishment and that he might be able to obtain his release once he demonstrates that he `no longer presents, as a result of a mental disease or defect, a substantial danger to other persons....' Majority at 755 (quoting RCW 10.77.200(2)). How Mr. Well should demonstrate that he no longer presents a danger as the result of a mental defect is not, however, explained. Indeed the task may be quite impossible. Not only does logic preclude proof of a negative but to even begin he would be forced to rely on two questionable, but implicit, assumptions:' (1) mental disease causes dangerousness and (2) dangerousness is subject to reasonable prediction. Concomitantly, if future dangerousness as the result of a mental disorder cannot be reliably and validly predicted then it would seem virtually impossible to demonstrate, as the majority suggests, that one no longer presents, as a result of a mental disease or defect, a substantial danger to other persons.... Id. Compare In re Harris, 98 Wash.2d 276, 281, 654 P.2d 109 (1982) (recognizing even American Psychiatric Association has confessed the profession's inability to predict dangerousness, referencing scholarly articles). Although restoration of sanity to the system (and perhaps Mr. Well) is beyond the power of this dissent, to admonish Mr. Well for not taking additional steps to treat a condition, or the symptom of a condition, which cannot reasonably be demonstrated to exist in the first instance seems amiss.