Court Opinion

ID: 9740469
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:36:15.141492+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:18.402968
License: Public Domain

Bashara, J.
(dissenting). I respectfully dissent from the majority opinion in this cause.
MCL 330.1452; MSA 14.800(452) provides that a hearing shall be convened promptly, but in no case more than seven days after the court’s receipt of an application for hospitalization or a petition to determine that an individual is a person requiring treatment. The application or petition must be supported by certificates executed by a physician and by a psychiatrist. Thus, to hold that the seven-day requirement requires the setting aside of the probate court’s order because the hearing was not held until 15 days after the filing of said documents, resulting in a dismissal of the matter, appears to be unnecessary and even antagonistic to the patient and family involved.
*738The majority opinion indicates that civil commitments and criminal convictions are not to be equated, and I quite agree. In this case, recognized psychiatrists have certified that the individual required treatment. We should take into consideration the fact that the statutory process by which the individual may be hospitalized has been made so difficult for the alleged mentally ill person and his or her family that to dismiss the petition on such strict adherence to the rule does, in fact, equate the person who is sick with one whose rights under the criminal code might be violated. The interests of those persons allegedly in need of help must be balanced against putative violations of their rights.
It is clear that if a hearing is not held within a reasonable length of time dismissal of the action should be forthcoming, but to say that if the hearing is not held within seven days the matter should be dismissed would, in my opinion, exacerbate the already existing problem. Unlike the accused criminal, the individual in such a proceeding is ill and requires treatment. The courts and the public should, in these instances, come down on the side of the person requiring treatment rather than refuse needed aid on the basis of a quasi-criminal law theory.