Opinion ID: 2608801
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: calculation of detention period

Text: The parties also disagree as to when the 72-hour period begins. [7] We take this opportunity to clarify this issue. Swanson argues that the 72-hour period begins when a facility accepts a person based on a petition for initial detention, while Harborview asserts that it does not begin until a facility actually admits a detained person. Using Harborview's method of computation, travel time is not included. For example, if a person is originally detained in Cashmere and later transported to Eastern State Hospital, the trip could take several hours. According to the construction urged by Harborview, the 72-hour period would not begin to run until the person actually arrived at the hospital. This would necessarily leave an unspecified period of time when the person is neither detained nor free to leave. [8] The applicable statutes clearly do not support such a result. RCW 71.05.240 reads in part as follows: If a petition is filed for fourteen day involuntary treatment or ninety days of less restrictive alternative treatment, the court shall hold a probable cause hearing within seventy-two hours of the initial detention of such person as determined in RCW 71.05.180, as now or hereafter amended. [7] Thus, we turn to RCW 71.05.180 to determine when the initial detention occurs for the purpose of defining the 72-hour period. RCW 71.05.180 expressly states that: If the evaluation and treatment facility admits the person, it may detain him for evaluation and treatment for a period not to exceed seventy-two hours from the time of acceptance as set forth in RCW 71.05.170. The computation of such seventy-two hour period shall exclude Saturdays, Sundays and holidays. (Italics ours.) We next turn to RCW 71.05.170, which reads in part as follows: Whenever the designated county mental health professional petitions for detention of a person . .. the facility providing seventy-two hour evaluation and treatment must immediately accept on a provisional basis the petition and the person. The facility shall then evaluate the person's condition and admit or release such person in accordance with RCW 71.05.210. (Italics ours.) Therefore, under RCW 71.05.170, a facility must immediately accept a person when the designated county mental health professional petitions for detention. It is this time of acceptance that is referred to in RCW 71.05.180 as beginning the 72-hour period, not the detainee's time of arrival at, or admittance to, the facility. This reading is further supported by MPR 2.2(e), which reads in part that [t]he 72-hour period begins when the person is provisionally accepted at the evaluation and treatment facility. Thus, we hold that the 72-hour period begins upon a facility's immediate provisional acceptance of a petition and person for detention.