Court Opinion

ID: 9762685
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:29:02.364281+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:36.682906
License: Public Domain

McDERMOTT, Justice,
dissenting.
The purpose of the statute requiring a judicial commitment for psychiatric evaluation is to prevent persons from being seized and imprisoned in a hospital solely at the whim of others; others whose purposes may not be for the benefit of the alleged patient.
The statute has three levels of concern. The first is a 72 hour judicial commitment for the purpose of a diagnosis and prescription if any is required. 50 P.S. § 73021. The second is a judicial commitment for a 20 day period pursuant to an “informal hearing” with the patient having appointed or retained counsel present. 50 P.S. § 73Q3.2 The third is for 90 days pursuant to a formal hearing wherein *578the patient is also entitled to counsel. 50 P.S. § 7304.3 The broad question before us is whether any of these proceedings are open to the public. On this point the statute is clear that whether they are public hearings is a matter left entirely to the patient and counsel. Each step under the statute is governed not by the discretion of the court in opening the hearings but by the request of the alleged patient. In this regard Section 7304(e)(4) provides:
[T]he hearing shall be public unless it is requested to be private by the person or his counsel.
50 P.S. § 7304(e)(4) (emphasis added).4
The issues before the hearing court are deeply personal, for which the legislature properly left disclosure to the person involved. There is no reason, beyond the person’s own request, why the public should be invited to sit beside their bed and overhear their physicians.
I dissent.

. Act of July 9, 1976, P.L. 817, No. 143 § 302. As amended Nov. 26, 1978, P.L. 1362, No. 324 § 1.

. Id.

. Id.

. I realize that subsection (e)(4) is intended to apply to 90 day hearings. However, the clear import of the legislature’s scheme can be gleaned from the inclusion of the patient’s right to dictate the extent of privacy in this most formal of the three procedures. Surely, if the patient can exclude the public at this latter hearing the public would have no greater rights at the more intimate informal hearings.