Opinion ID: 1739016
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: pre-commitment hearing

Text: In M.W., all parties to the case had agreed that a preplacement hearing was necessary. However, due to the factual circumstances in that case, a hearing did not take place before the child had been committed to the locked residential treatment center. Despite the directives in M.W., the Committee determined that in light of the legislation passed subsequent to M.W., a preplacement hearing is not required. The Committee points out that Senate Bill 682 (2000), the enacting legislation for section 39.407(5), originally required a preplacement hearing. However, the Legislature affirmatively removed this requirement and replaced it with an extensive process of post-placement evaluations and placement reviews. The Committee notes that these statutory procedures offer due process safeguards similar to those required by the United States Supreme Court in Parham v. J.R., 442 U.S. 584, 99 S.Ct. 2493, 61 L.Ed.2d 101 (1979). The Committee explains that the rule provides the following additional procedures: (1) mandating a status hearing within five days of the placement; and (2) affording any party to the dependency proceeding, including the child, the ability to request a placement review hearing. The Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law (Bazelon) and Professor Susan Stefan, in arguing against adoption of the proposed rule, demonstrate how, under the proposed rule, a child can remain in residential treatment for over one month before any court addresses the propriety of the placement: The placement hearing may take place as late as 14 days after the guardian ad litem's report, which itself is due 14 days after placement. Although the proposed rule is silent as to whether these time periods include weekends and holidays, Rule of Juvenile Procedure 8.240(a)(2000) suggest that Saturdays, Sundays and holidays shall be excluded from the computation of time. Thus, the proposed rule contemplates between 5 and 5½ weeks would pass in a locked psychiatric facility before the child would receive the meaningful opportunity to be heard ordered by the court. (Citations omitted). Bazelon and Professor Stefan further point out that a child charged with being delinquent cannot be held in detention without a hearing to determine probable cause, and the judge may not continue the detention for more than 72 hourswith a possible 24 hour extension without a finding of probable cause. Thus, the dependent child has fewer protections than the delinquent child.