How mental health law discriminates against people with mental illness

via Gresham College 

Professor George Szmukler, Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London

How mental health law discriminates against people with mental illness 

 Summary

Mental health legislation, as currently conceived in most jurisdictions, discriminates against people with a mental illness.  It carries underlying assumptions that people with such illnesses are not fully autonomous and that they are dangerous to others.  Thus such legislation reinforces damaging stereotypes of people with a mental illness.  By building on the complementary strengths of capacity-based and civil commitment legislation, we propose a ‘fusion’ of legal principles into a model law which has decision-making capacity at its centre, but which clearly defines how the use of detention and force are to be governed.  This comprehensive law is designed to apply to all persons who lack capacity, from whatever cause and in whatever healthcare setting.  We have drafted a model law that demonstrates these principles can be given practical expression¹¹.  The model law, unlike the current MHA is, I would argue, compliant with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

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Why are different lower "legal" standards used in Involuntary Commitment proceedings?

"If the physician presumes to take into consideration in his work whether a life has value or not, the consequences are boundless and the physician becomes the most dangerous man in the state. -DR. CURISTOPH HUPELAND (1762-1836)

I have not been myself since the summer of 2010. More accurately, I have been changed by the events which happened when my son had a crisis. I more fully realized that many things are just not at all how they should be, and that many people do not seem to care that they are not. Crimes were committed in the summer of 2010 which violated my son's civil rights, and when I filed complaints with the appropriate authorities on his behalf no appropriate action was taken. My son was traumatized yet again by unethical "mental health professionals" who are not going to be held legally accounable for committing crimes which caused harm to a person they owe an ethical legal duty to. It is standard for no one to be held accountable when victimizing people with a psychiatric diagnosis. Crimes are not even investigated, at least crimes in which my son was the victim never have been...

Although involuntary treatment commitment proceedings are considered, “civil” as opposed to “criminal,” one should have no doubt that a loss of one’s liberty, the loss of legal and political status without being afforded equal protection under the law, is a violation of one’s Human Rights. The consequences are as detrimental, if not more so, than the consequences for a misdemeanor criminal conviction. For one thing the Court Order can be in effect for the remainder of one’s life. The individual rights protections the law allows a person in a civil commitment proceeding are less than those people charged with crimes can count on. Not unlike a misdemeanor criminal conviction, a Court Order for involuntary treatment alters a person’s legal status and temporarily deprives them of their Liberty. However, in civil commitment proceedings, the person’s lowered status often becomes a permanent legal distinction, and the deprivation of Liberty can also become permanent, through either in- or out-patient commitment.

This begs the question, “Why are different lower "legal" standards used in Involuntary Commitment proceedings?” The Involuntary Treatment statutes deprive people of individual rights protection people charged with felony crimes can take for granted.  

1. The “evidence” required to obtain a Court Order to detain, and/or commit a person can consist of nothing more than hearsay, speculation, gossip and innuendo, it is not required to comply with the Rules of Evidence.  

2. It is alleged or implied in the proceedings that the person has a “brain disease” or genetic defect which will be corrected, or “medically treated.” No evidence is offered; nor is any evidence to support the claim stated or implied even asked for.

3. Standard Court Procedures are not followed.

4. A person may be appointed an attorney, however, this does not mean that Effective Assistance of Counsel is provided. Not only are the legal, social and political consequences of a Court Order for Involuntary Treatment  profound; the medical consequences can be lethal.

The obvious detrimental social, political and legal consequences to the person court ordered to Involuntary Treatment really demands that individuals have equal protection under the law. It is ethically, legally and morally indefensible they are allowed much less. It is a civil rights violation. It is a social policy that has “legalized” discrimination against an entire class of people Under Color of Law. It is inhumane to deprive vulnerable people of equal protection under the law. The attempts to justify this social policy by claiming it is in a victim’s “best interest;” or that it is done “for their own good” are juvenile; all things considered, justifying any of this as beneficent or charitable is incomprehensible; truly despicable really.

Medical professionals in theory, police themselves...Doctors (and perhaps, all professions that "police" themselves) seem to do so very ineffectively. While this is a rather broad generalization, I believe there is more than a grain of truth in it...
Part of learning in life and in medicine requires learning from one's own and one another's mistakes; in effect, bearing one another's burdens as well---this reliance upon one another may inhibit one’s ability or willingness to learn how and when one should act in defense of a vulnerable person, and perhaps play a role in having a person held accountable for an error that caused harm to a vulnerable person. The intent and the purpose of accountability is to ensure people are treated with respect and have ethical medical care to protect patients from quackery and unethical practitioners. Performing the ethical duty of policing one’s colleagues more effectively and consistently, would restore and help to effectively preserve the ethical integrity of the evidence base, and the reputation of the medical profession.  

One of the things that I have come to realize, (I have yet to accept it with any grace) is with rare exceptions, basically good people, who were otherwise competent professionals made errors in judgement or behaved in a reckless, abusive or negligent manner when interacting with my son.  For the most part, basically decent people harmed my son. Even more looked the other way; failing their ethical duty to my son. It is of no comfort to me to realise it wasn’t malice or ill intent which motivated their actions; truthfully, the fact that it was simply carelessness or ignorance, has  caused me no small amount of additional sorrow...

I’m at a loss as how to reconcile what I believed and thought was true about people in general, and mental health professionals in particular, with our experiences. The manner in which we were treated, has made it impossible to reconcile how we were treated with the ethical guidelines for medicine, or the principles of social justice. Societal norms of civility and human decency I believed at one time to be "how things are done;" were nowhere to be found in our trek through the mental illness system.  I have spent countless hours doing research looking for answers which could possibly explain any of what happened; and I came across the chapter of a book several weeks ago that offered an explanation of sorts, but is of no comfort at all. I am nonetheless thankful to have found it.  

There is no reason for what we experienced. Reason has nothing to do with good people being wilfully blind; in effect, choosing silent complicity. There is no good reason for continuing to employ people who fail to perform required tasks clearly stated in their job description, when their failure is a crime. The system isn't broken---it's the people who are employed in spite of failing to perform a critical part of their jobs as Paid Public Servants. The fact that is, it's a crime for state employees or contracted providers to not refer complaints to Law Enforcement for investigation when required by law to do so; this seems to be conveniently overlooked; rarely (if ever) prosecuted. Probably because the state is ultimately liable for damages.


I am grateful that I was there to bear witness to how my son was used and abused; more grateful that he survived. I am painfully aware others don't survive; then there are the survivors who have no one to validate their pain, some have no one who listens to them at all. No one should have to bear such burdens alone; no one should be without someone who loves them, validates them, believes them and has confidence in them. Someone who will bear witness for them, should they be too traumatized to tell their own story. My son has been silenced by fear and trauma (de)Voiced by his lived experience; he will be 25 day after tomorrow, silenced by fear.  

I have no understanding for why a psychiatric diagnosis is used as a justification for treating people as if the diagnosis means they are less than human; less than worthy of their Human Rights being preserved or even defended. In truth, it seems to me that if a person is not as able to protect their legal interests temporarily or permanently for any reason, the person would need special consideration to preserve and defend their fundamental Human Rights. Involuntary Treatment statutes lower the standards and allow a much lower standard with less protection for an individual's Human Rights to be used. How is that even ethically or morally justifiable? I know it isn't. I know it is inhumane, that it is discrimination based on *a real or perceived* disability; making it "legal;" but not in reality, since it is unconstitutional, and violates individual rights Under Color of Law. That it uses the same convoluted ignorant reasoning; the same type propaganda, and the same social control tactics that were used to implement Eugenics as a "public health" and "social services" policy in this country is horrifying---Doesn't anyone in America know any American History? Implementing these kind of "beneficent" social service programs which deprive people of their human dignity, their Human Rights, and their freedom for life Under Color of Law has been done before in the US Eugenics Era and in Germany leading up to WWII.

via the New Existentialists:

Eugenics and Psychiatry: A Brief Overview of the History

a couple of excerpts:
"In my casual observations in conversation with colleagues, I find that very few mental health professionals are aware of the historical link between psychiatry and eugenics."

"Has psychiatry today fully exorcised the demons of it’s past? I think not. Children in poverty, especially those on public welfare and in foster care, are much more likely to be drugged with harmful antipsychotic drugs. I see this kind of psychiatric abuse as an extension of the eugenics project, and it needs to stop. Psychiatry is also still used to perpetuate racism. Today, we still see that black men are misdiagnosed with schizophrenia five times more often than white people. It is easier to label a person with madness and force his compliance with antipsychotic drugs than to endure the difficult job of listening to a man who lived with the darkness of a lifetime of victimization by racism. Until we see such patterns disappear from psychiatry practice, I will remain unconvinced that psychiatry has fully escaped the weight of its shameful eugenic legacy."

-- Brent Dean Robbins here

available at Amazon

"IF we want to understand violence as a whole, we cannot leave any of its major manifestations in a fog of half-knowledge. But this is exactly what has happened with an unprecedented occurrence of mass violence, the deliberate killing of large numbers of mental patients, for which psychiatrists were directly responsible. To both the general public and the psychiatric profession, the details and the background are still imperfectly known. This is not only a chapter in the history of violence; it is also a chapter in the history of psychiatry. Silence does not wipe it out, minimizing it does not expunge it. It must be faced. We must try to understand and resolve it." Fredric Wetham, M.D. A SIGN FOR CAIN An Exploration of Human Violence
A SIGN FOR CAIN An Exploration of Human Violence FREDRIC WERTHAM, M.D.Chapter 9 (pdf) http://ow.ly/h5dfY  on Leonard Roy Franks website

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Eugenics photo credit

Washington State's Involuntary Treatment Act legalized discrimination and Civil Rights violations

This post is in response to an OP-Ed in the Seattle Times written by Walt Stawicki which was published January 5, 2013 

No one is free when others are oppressed.

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.  

~Abraham Lincoln

I believe we must speak our conscience in moments that demand it, 
even if we are but one voice.
~Richard B. Sanders

via The Seattle Times:

Op-ed: Mental illness and violence — what must change in Washington state

We’re in denial about the connection between mental illness and the shootings at the school in Newtown, Conn., the movie theater in Aurora, Colo., and Cafe Racer in Seattle, writes guest columnist Walt Stawicki 

"We’re in denial about the connection between mental illness and the shootings at the school in Newtown, Conn., the movie theater in Aurora, Colo., and Cafe Racer in Seattle. These statistics suggest that half or two-thirds of spree shooters were often formally diagnosed, formerly hospitalized, or had shown rage, aggression, paranoia and/or delusional thinking.

"If half to two-thirds does not suggest a pattern, what can? Would it be suggested by the extensive statements of family members who lived with the emergent dangers?" read here

All due respect to Mr. Stawicki, who is seeking to help other families, the perspectives and the needs of family members who are concerned about a loved one with mental illness, are valid and important, but are not necessarily the perspective from which a rational response to tragedy will come. The sense of social responsibility that Mr. Stawicki has is admirable.  That said, I find it troubling that this OP-Ed was published in the State of Washington's largest newspaper with no source given for the "facts" it contains. Mr. Stawicki flatly declares that the criteria to have a person civilly committed is too strict, and needs to be loosened up; because he says, that's what families have told him. I suspect, that his opinion is offered at least in part because Mr. Stawicki was sought out, "informed" and encouraged to advocate by DJ Jaffe; a forced treatment proponent who lives in New York State. 

Mr. Stawicki, by his own admission, has no experience with the mental health system, no history of unsuccessful attempts to access mental health services for his son. In light of this lack of experience, it is troubling that he states,  "In most cases, families see something coming. Even though we may be afraid of what our loved ones may do, we have learned that the system is not going to help until it’s time for ambulances and body bags." 

Mr. Stawicki did not cite any sources for the "statistics" he used in his editorial, and has no personal experience to base his belief that "the system is not going to help until ambulances and body bags are needed" on.  This statement and Mr. Stawicki quoting DJ Jaffe making the outrageous claim that, "There are ways to know which mentally ill individuals become or are likely to become violent," undermines his credibility as an advocate. This quote is an opinion without a factual basis. It is an outrageous claim for a so-called "advocate for the seriously mentally ill" to make, and Mr. Stawicki using it as if it is a fact, is irresponsible. The professional literature is quite clear that there is not yet any way to reliably predict who will become violent.  The methods the professionals do have to assess the risk for violence are not accurate enough to reliably predict an individual's potential for violence. Additionally, the belief that psychiatric treatment can prevent violence is contradictory to well documented adverse effects of the psychotropics drugs that psychiatrists use to treat mental illnesses they diagnose that are known to cause  violent, aggressive, suicidal and homicidal behaviors.  

via the American Psychiatric Association: 

Position Statement on Assessing the Risk for Violence

Approved by the Board of Trustees, July 2012
Approved by the Assembly, May 2012

"Policy documents are approved by the APA Assembly and Board of Trustees…These are…position statements that define APA official policy on specific subjects…" 

– APA Operations Manual.

This position statement was proposed by the Workgroup on Violence Risk of the Council on Psychiatry and Law.

During their careers most psychiatrists will assess the risk of violence to others. While psychiatrists can often identify circumstances associated with an increased likelihood of violent behavior, they cannot predict dangerousness with definitive accuracy. Over any given period some individuals assessed to be at low risk will act violently while others assessed to be at high risk will not. When deciding whether a patient is in need of intervention to prevent harm to others, psychiatrists should consider both the presence of recognized risk factors and the most likely precipitants of violence in a particular case.

The members of the Workgroup on Violence Risk are: Alec Buchanan, M.D. (Chairperson), Michael A. Norko, M.D., Renee L. Binder, M.D., and Marvin Swartz, M.D.

While there is no way to know for certain, it is possible the tragic events in which Ian Statawicki shot and killed five people, and injured a sixth before taking his own life, may have never occurred had he been prosecuted for the two assaults he committed in 2007 and 2010.  He was not prosecuted because a girlfriend and his mother lied about what had occurred, and the King County and Kittitas County Prosecutors had to drop the assault charges against him.  

HAD IAN STAWICKI BEEN PROSECUTED FOR ASSAULT EITHER OF THE TWO TIMES HE WAS ARRESTED, HE WOULD NOT HAVE HAD THE RIGHT TO OWN OR POSSESS ANY FIREARMS; HE WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN ALLOWED TO GET A CONCEALED CARRY PERMIT. HAD IAN STAWICKI BEEN CONVICTED, HE COULD HAVE BEEN REQUIRED TO GET THE TREATMENT HIS FATHER SAYS HE NEEDED AS PART OF HIS SENTENCE.

via Seattle Times:

"One of Stawicki's ex-girlfriends, who he dated for three years, noticed his personality "suddenly changed" in late 2007, when he began flying into a violent rages, according to a domestic-violence court filing. In February 2008, she came home to find Stawicki smashing more than $1,000 worth of belongings, including her computer monitor and vinyl-record collection.

"When she tried to call 911, "All of a sudden I was on the ground and my nose was bleeding," she told police.

"He grabbed his .45-caliber handgun and fled into nearby Discovery Park before a police K9 unit tracked him down.

"He was charged with four domestic violence-related misdemeanors, but the charges were dismissed when the woman filed a sworn statement to Stawicki's attorney, Michael Kolker of Seattle, disputing the police report. Kolker declined to comment.

"Two years later, in March 2010, Stawicki displayed similar rage when, according to police report, he attacked his brother, Andrew, at their family's Ellensburg home. Stawicki said he "was blind" because of his younger brother, and began punching him in front of their mother.

"Andrew Stawicki said the incident is the reason he stopped talking to his brother.

"Ian Stawicki was again charged with misdemeanor assault, and represented by Kolker. This time it was his mother disputing the police report, describing it as a verbal, not physical, confrontation, and prosecutors dropped the charges." read  here 

I live here in Washington, and I have all my life, as have my children who are now grown. I have no doubt that the civil commitment criteria in Washington State's Involuntary Treatment Act do not need to be lower than they are currently. Washington State allows gossip and hearsay to be used as "evidence." I know for a fact from experience, that when the current standards are not followed, there is no investigation, even though the Law states it is a requirement. I know for a fact that perjury and forgery can be used by unethical mental health professionals with impunity. These "professionals can then shred the original Court documents and cover up their crimes; knowing that no criminal investigation will be conducted if  the crimes are reported. The reality is, when people with serious mental illness are the victims of crime, the perpetrators are seldom held accountable.  Even if the perpetrator is a Police Officer another one here.

Two of my major issues with mainstream advocacy groups and and advocates like DJ Jaffe is the utter and complete failure to do any advocacy for bringing those who  perpetrate crimes harming and killing the people diagnosed with mental illnesses to justice. The other, is the fact that these groups are silent about the amount of fraud and blatant corruption in psychiatry through it's collusion with the drug industry. It is pseudo-science with consensus based psychiatric diagnoses and "medical," e.g. psychopharmacological treatments.  Instead, these sort of advocates capitalize on tragedies involving mentally ill victims and/or perpetrators and enlist the parents as advocates for the forced treatment agenda. Advocating for an agenda is not the same thing as advocating for the people who have a psychiatric diagnosis that the forced treatment agenda is going to be implemented against. 

I have not been myself since the summer of 2010 when I realized that many things are just not at all how I believed them to be. This realization is painful, as were the events which brought it about. Felony crimes were committed in Yakima County Superior Court against my son, and when I filed a criminal complaint reporting the crimes with Law Enforcement, and the Division of Behavioral Health and Recovery, Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights, and the Department of Justice, Office of Civil Rights, Criminal Division--nothing happened. Well, some things happened; however, none of the things that should have happened, have happened. No investigation, no prosecution, and no conviction for the felony crimes committed by medical and legal “professionals” who abandoned their training, the ethics of their chosen professions, their duty to my son and their duty as Officers of the Court. Using a forged document and perjury as “evidence” these people went into Yakima County Superior Court to obtain Court Orders to detain and subsequently commit my son. These crimes were committed when he sought to be hospitalized because he was in crisis. He had committed no crime. He has never refused to take prescribed medications; nor has he ever refused to go to scheduled appointments.

Although involuntary treatment commitment proceedings are considered, “civil” as opposed to “criminal;” one should have no doubt that the loss of one’s liberty and the loss of legal and political status, without being afforded equal protection under the law, is a violation of one’s Human Rights, codified as one's Constitutional rights, here in the United States. The consequences are as detrimental, if not more so, than the consequences for a misdemeanor criminal conviction. The consequences of a civil commitment proceeding which results in a Court Order, can conceivably last the remainder of one’s lifetime. The legal protections the law affords a person in a civil commitment proceeding is less than that afforded criminal defendants; even if the person facing involuntary commitment is not suspected of committing any crime...Not unlike a misdemeanor criminal conviction, a Court Order for involuntary treatment alters a person’s legal status; however, unlike most criminal convictions, a civil commitment may ultimately result in a lifetime deprivation or limitation of the individual's Liberty; vis-à-vis community treatment orders.


Why are there different, and much lower standards used in Civil Involuntary Commitment proceedings than in any other type of Court proceeding? The Involuntary Treatment statute deprives a person of their individual Constitutional Rights which are preserved and defended for people who are charged with crimes.   

1. The “evidence” required to obtain a Court Order to detain, and/or commit a person can be nothing more than hearsay, speculation, gossip and innuendo. In my son's case, the "evidence" was fabricated by unethical mental health "professionals" who acted Under Color of Law with impunity. The mental health clinic that employs them shredded the original court documents, a violation of the law that was reported, but never investigated or prosecuted.

2. It is alleged or implied in these proceedings that the person has a “brain disease” a genetic defect, or a "chemical imbalance" and that it is a psychiatric diagnosis that can be corrected, or at least, “medically treated.” No factual evidence is offered to substantiate what is alleged or implied; nor is any evidence that the person has a disease or defect even required.

3. Standard Court Procedures are not followed. By law, following Standard Court Procedures is not required in civil commitment proceedings.

4. The person subjected to these proceedings is appointed an attorney; however, this does not mean that Effective Assistance of Counsel is provided. Not only are the legal, social and political consequences of a Court Order for Involuntary Treatment  profound; the medical consequences can be lethal--A vigorous defense is needed, yet rarely is any defense, let alone a vigorous one, even attempted. An attorney was assigned 700 Involuntary Commitment cases to defend in one year working as Assigned Counsel in Yakima County's Office of Assigned Counsel, he unabashedly admitted that he had unsuccessfully mounted a defense in 3 of the 700 cases.

The obvious detrimental social, political and legal consequences to the person court ordered to Involuntary Treatment demands that individuals who are subject to these proceedings have equal protection under the law. It is ethically, legally and morally indefensible that the law requires so much less. It is an intentional violation of an individual's civil rights. It is a legally mandated social policy that “legalized” discrimination against an entire class of people. It purposely deprives people of their individual rights Under Color of Law. It is inhumane to deprive vulnerable people of equal protection under the law. The attempts to justify this social policy by claiming it is in a victim’s “best interest;” or that any of this is done “for their own good” is all things considered, truly despicable and utterly reprehensible.

The answer to “Why are there different, and much lower standards used in Civil Involuntary Commitment proceedings?” It is because there is no evidence that a psychiatric diagnosis of schizophrenia, for example, is caused by a brain disease or genetic defect. It is a hypothesis, not even a theory. Therefore, there is no evidence to offer a Court that complies with or conforms to the Rules of Evidence used in Courts of Law in every other criminal or civil proceeding. These involuntary treatment hearings can only be undertaken by depriving individuals of their Constitutional Rights. So, this unconstitutional law further declares that the standard Rules of Evidence do not apply, and neither do Standard Court Procedures. 

Psychiatry is not an ethical medical practice, if it were, it would use ethical medical principles. It would not use fraudulent and discredited research, and adopt standards based on subjective opinions. It would not rationalize and justify misinforming patients and the general public about the nature of psychiatric diagnoses and treatments as being done "for their own good." Psychiatry if it were an ethical medical practice,would not later claim that professionals were stating diagnoses are diseases not because it was the truth,(because it is not) but it was simply, "a metaphor" used to help patients "understand" how important taking their drugs and being "treatment compliant" is. What a despicable juvenile rationalization and justification for an intentional deceit that in effect, and in fact made committing criminal fraud a standard clinical practice. Psychiatrists participated in widespread corruption and fraud to "practice medicine." The billions of dollars of fraud that the pharmaceutical industry has been fined for what is still an ongoing criminal enterprise has netted taxpayers billions of dollars in fines; a very small percentage of what was defrauded from the public coffers. The fraud and and illegal marketing could not have been implemented at all without the willing cooperation and felonious complicity of psychiatrists who are considered "leaders" in the American Psychiatric Association and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Every one of the "patient advocacy groups" have some of these same criminals serving as "scientific advisers" and/or Board members.

If Involuntary Treatment is, "in the patient's best interest," and "for their own good..." 
I'm Mary Freakin' Poppins!

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

C.S. Lewis

Grace E. Jackson, M.D., affidavit on toxicity and brain damage

Involuntary Commitment and Forced Psychiatric Drugging in the Trial Courts: Rights Violations as a Matter of Course, by James B. (Jim) Gottstein, 25 Alaska L. Rev.  51 (2008).

Neurleptic Drugs and Violence Catherine Clarke SRN, SCM, MSSCH, MBChA.
and Jan Evans MCSP. Grad Dip Phys.

Why can't you simply DO YOUR JOBS as paid public servants and demonstrate some ethical integrity?

“Our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy, rotten system.” 

Dorothy Day

"I believe we must speak our conscience in moments that demand it, 

even if we are but one voice" Richard B. Sanders

Keeping Up Appearances in Washington State the State's investigation of my complaint because It took one minute... for the Court hearing to commit my son to Involuntary Treatment.  Then I learned How Many Go Without Effective Assistance of Counsel? 
How my son came home from Child Study and Treatment Center  A MadMother in Pro Per 

December 14, 2012

Dear Ms. Murphy:

I am writing in response to your e­mail exchanges with the Attorney General’s Office that have occurred since September 18, 2012.  In your e­mails, you have stated a concern that your son was not treated with appropriate mental health services by the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS).  Further, you have stated that you believe a criminal investigation should be commenced to look into felony crimes committed in the course of your son’s treatment.

I am one of the attorneys in the Attorney General’s Office involved in the representation of behavioral health programs within DSHS.  In that capacity, I was asked to respond to your letter.

Your letter does concern me because the mission of DSHS is to decrease poverty, improve safety and health status and increase educational and employment success to support people and communities in reaching their potential.  Each year, more than 2.2 million children, families, vulnerable adults and seniors come to DSHS for protection, comfort, food assistance, financial aid, medical and behavioral health care.

In your correspondence, you have raised concerns about the treatment your son received by various behavioral health care providers, including the Child Study and Treatment Center.  Our office is not in a position to investigate the state agencies or systems that we are charged with representing.  Therefore, I recommend that you take your concerns to a private attorney or legal service organization (such as the Northwest Justice Project), who can counsel you as to the most appropriate action.  Criminal actions are generally investigated by the county prosecuting attorneys.  The Attorney General’s Office only investigates and prosecutes those criminal cases where local prosecuting attorneys cannot undertake the case.

I hope this information is helpful to you in clarifying the role of the Attorney General’s Office.

Sincerely,

ERIC NELSON

Assistant Attorney General

EN:jsn

Please do not respond to this e-mail address; it is an unmonitored account.  For any further correspondence to the Washington State Attorney General’s Office, please go to the AGO Web site and use the contact form at

https://fortress.wa.gov/atg/formhandler/ago/ContactForm.aspx.

Mr. Nelson, 

I appreciate your response, however, I am disappointed in it's content, particularly the notice at the bottom.  I am fully cognizant of the legal functions the Attorney General is responsible for as an elected public servant working for the people of the State of Washington. One the legal duties as the State's legal representative whose job is to enforce the Law, is also to ensure that the people who are Court Ordered to Involuntary Treatment have their procedural and substantive Due Process Rights, their Human Rights, i.e. their Constitutional Rights, preserved. 

An Order to Detain was sought and obtained using perjured testimony, the petition was supported by a forged Affidavit, the DMHP, Nancy Sherman, further attested she had informed me of her intention to Detain my son, who was seeking to be hospitalized; she did not inform me. She further attests on her petition that my son was accompanied by his brother, which is true. What she did not say, is that he was also accompanied by me, his mother. She states in her petition that she notified me "verbally" of her intent to detain my son; this is a lie. She attested that she notified me "verbally," but lists a number that is not my phone number.---I was present at the Crisis Center, so there would have been no reason to call me on the telephone---the testimony Ms. Sherman  offers the Court implies that I was not present.  These "facts" along with slander are used by Ms. Sherman in an obvious an attempt to characterize my son being violent and aggressive, the statements are libelous and are offered as evidence on her petition seeking an Order to Detain. Ms. Sherman commited felony perjury and fraud  when performing her job and acting as an agent of the State as the Designated Mental Health Professional; she is employed by Central Washington Comprehensive Mental Health (CWCMH) who is the only contracted provider for crisis response mental health services in Yakima County. The psychiatrist, Jeffrey Jennings, who subsequently sought a Court Order for Involuntary Treatment, had never met my son, and refused to return multiple telephone messages I left both at his CWCMH office and at the hospital; yet on multiple occasions he had left messages with Memorial Hospital staff for me to call him. The man had no first hand information about my son, or the circumstances which led up to the crisis when his brother and I accompanied him to the crisis center. So, instead of using only information he knew first hand to be true, as the instructions from the Washington State Court form states must be used when filing an Affidavit and a petition for a Court Order, Jeffrey Jennings simply repeats the false testimony offered by the DMHP, Ms. Sherman.  Both the Deputy Prosecutor, Dan Polage, and Assigned Counsel, Jennifer Lesmez, were aware that the facts alleged were in dispute. Dan Polage had an ethical and a legal Duty to verify the veracity of the evidence, and did not. Specifically, the Court was told that my son had attacked me, had thrown a large television at me---breaking it to peices---and the Court was told that he threatened both his parents and that we are afraid of him; my son had not seen his other parent for over a decade---

Below is a picture of the TV the Court was told had been smashed to pieces.  What really seriously ANGERS me, it that bitch told the Court that I am afraid of my son, and that he had attacked me, neither of which are true.

I am afraid FOR my son.  After this chain of events, I have no doubt that the biggest threat to his life, what health he has left, and his happiness comes from unethical Mental Health Professionals. I now know DMHPs and psychiatrists are allowed to commit Felony Crimes in Washington State's Superior Court, with impunity.   

Mr. Nelson,  I want to point out that you neglected to share anything about what the Attorney General's legal duty was/ and still is, to MY SON, the victim of Nancy Sherman, Jeffrey Jennings, Dan Polage, and Jennifer Lesmez.  The State has a duty to my son, and to all people who like him, have a psychiatric diagnosis and are brought before the Washington State Superior Court by Washington State's Designated Mental Health Professionals. The DMHPs are acting as agents of the State of Washington, tasked with determining when the deprivation of a person's Liberty is required in order to help a person with a mental illness. 

Ensuring that these Court Orders are only obtained when necessary, and in compliance with Washington State Law, is one of the duties that the involuntary treatment statute states the State of Washington must perform.  As the SOW's legal representative, this legal duty resides with the Attorney General's office.  I filed my complaint with the designated complaint taker in DSHS that Washington State's Administrative Code identifies as the proper receiver of such complaints. The complaint should have been forwarded to the Washington State Patrol so that the Felony Crimes alleged in the criminal complaint could be investigated.  The crimes were perpetrated by people acting as agents of the State of Washington; which is probably why the Division of Behavioral Health and Recovery did not inform Law Enforcement so that a proper Criminal Investigation could be conducted.

Instead, DSHS DBHR sent a couple of social workers who "investigated " and determined that my son's rights had not been violated, but were in fact, effectively preserved. This so-called investigation did no fact-finding or fact checking; and did not even interview eye-witnesses or speak to the victim, my son. In fact, these so-called investigators, claimed that merely by examining an electronic record, parts of which were copies of the fabricated testimony Nancy Sherman cut and pasted on a Court form Affidavit; and that psychiatrist, Jeffery Jennings, subsequently used in support of his petition to commit my son; is an investigation! These idiots concluded that everything in the record, including factual errors, i.e. contact information, and events that both attested under penalty of perjury to have occurred--which neither of these attestors witnessed. In reality, the attestations of Nancy Sherman and Jeffrey Jennings, have no basis in fact.  The State's "investigators" concluded in effect, the perjured statements are FACTUALLY correct, because the "investigators" had read them in the electronic record. The so-called investigators basically assert in their written report that the electronic record, is evidence that my son's Constitutional Rights were not violated. I assure you it is a violation of a person's individual rights to be proceeded against in a Court of Law when fraud and perjured testimony is the only "evidence." 

The Court Order was in fact illegally obtained, the Deputy Prosecutor and the Assigned Counsel went along, acting as accessories these officers of the Court facilitated the Felony Crimes committed by the DMHP, Nancy Sherman and psychiatrist, Jeffrey Jennings. I hope by now, my point is obvious to you, Mr.Nelson. Encyclopedia Brown or the Hardy Boys could have conducted a better investigation... 

It is my understanding from your email that you are asserting the State has no duty to investigate crimes committed by it's agents when it has been informed it's agents have committed felony crimes in their professional capacity which harm people and violate their individual rights; when the law clearly states the State does in fact have a duty. To be clear, you are telling me that the Attorney General has no duty to investigate felony crimes committed in Washington State Superior Court in Civil Commitment proceedings.  I suspect your assertion is made because the State is liable for the harm caused by the unethical, illegal actions of it's employees and contracted service providers Nancy Sherman, Jeffrey Jennings, Dan Polage and Jennifer Lesmez. To reiterate, are you suggesting it is not illegal to violate a person's individual rights under the Washington State Constitution and the Constitution of the United States of America when agents of the SOW, a DMHP, a Deputy Prosecutor, Assigned Counsel for the Defense, and a psychiatrist, submit and/or suborn perjured and fraudulent testimony to obtain the Court Order? You appear to be stating that the AG's office has no legal duty to investigate Civil Rights crimes committed against people with psychiatric diagnoses; and no duty to prosecute perpetrators who criminally victimize vulnerable adults with psychiatric diagnoses?

In fact, Mr. Nelson, the State has a legal duty to ensure that my son's individual rights are secured, and effectively preserved when it's agent's petition the Court to commit him to Involuntary Treatment. The State failed to do this. It is the State's duty to prosecute felony crimes, which victimize vulnerable adults; I would think it is in the State's best interest to prosecute felony crimes committed by Officers of the Court, and people acting as the SOW's agents that victimize vulnerable adults. The failure to conduct a criminal investigation implies the SOW has no fiduciary interest in actually performing it's ethical and legal duties in order to preserve the individual rights of people subject to being deprived of their liberty in civil commitment proceedings by agents of the state EVEN though State and Federal Law require the state to perform these duties... 

These events resulted in a  temporary loss of my son's Liberty---for six months; and a permanent loss of my son's Second Amendment Rights, these actions also violated his individual rights under the 4th, the 8th and the 14th amendments---in effect, and in fact, these are Human Rights Crimes.  What infuriates me, is these events further traumatized my son, who was and is a trauma victim.  The treatment he received at CSTC can best be described as torture, as Human Experimentation, i.e. Crimes Against Humanity.  The reason I file complaints on his behalf Mr. Nelson, is that he has cognitive and neurological impairments which also compromise his ability to effectively defend and advocate for himself. These injuries were caused by Jon McClellan, Medical Director of CSTC, who tortured my son using him as a guinea pig in Drug Trials.  It's true the Statute of limitations has tolled on Jon McClellan's crimes, it is also true that his crimes were a violation of State and Federal Law and the Nuremberg Code; Jon McClellan's crimes violated both my son's and my Constitutional Rights.  Worst of all, Jon McClellan permanently disabled my once brilliant son who at the age of seven, had an IQ of 146; but today can't do what he did at the age of seven. He did this without Informed Consent, and in spite of my vehement protests--and he was enabled to do this by agents of the state working in DSHS Children's Administration who violated State and Federal Law, and ultimately committed over a million dollars of Medicaid and Child Welfare fraud . 

I share these facts because they are the necessary background which must be understood and are relevant to as to why I report crimes committed, not only because the crimes further traumatize my son, but also because Mandated Reporters working for the State do not. Once again, the State of Washington has failed to do it's duty with due diligence, or with ethical integrity, and also once again, the State of Washington is denying any responsibility to perform a duty owed to my son. 

RCW 71.05.520

Protection of rights — Staff. The department of social and health services shall have the responsibility to determine whether all rights of individuals recognized and guaranteed by the provisions of this chapter and the Constitutions of the state of Washington and the United States are in fact protected and effectively secured. To this end, the department shall assign appropriate staff who shall from time to time as may be necessary have authority to examine records, inspect facilities, attend proceedings, and do whatever is necessary to monitor, evaluate, and assure adherence to such rights. Such persons shall also recommend such additional safeguards or procedures as may be appropriate to secure individual rights set forth in this chapter and as guaranteed by the state and federal Constitutions.

[1973 1st ex.s. c 142 § 57.]

  

The more recent felony crimes committed in the summer of 2010, caused my son, who is a large man of 6'3" and close to 300 lbs., to be so severely traumatized that it took me three weeks to convince him it was safe for him to step outside into our fenced yard. 

It is obvious the State of Washington is not compelled by any sense of ethical duty, and that it fails to perform it's legal duty to preserve and protect the individual rights of people who have psychiatric diagnoses in Civil Commitment proceedings. In my son's case, the State of Washington FAILED utterly and completely.  My son's rights were neither preserved nor defended, he was further traumatized yet again, and suffered further iatrogenic harm.   

My point is simply this: The State of Washington has a legal duty and I should not need to get an attorney to compel the Attorney General's office to ethically perform a job as an Officer of the Court that is in fact the AG's ethical legal duty to perform according to Washington State and Federal Law. Your email message suggests that the only way the AG's office and State of Washington will comply with State, Federal and International Law to ensure that individual rights are preserved and defended for people who are Court Ordered to Involuntary Treatment, is if the State is forced to perform it's duty. In effect, you imply the AG must be compelled to do the tasks he is obligated by Law to perform.  I am not surprised at your outrageous claim; but I am once again disappointed. 

I would like to point out that legal action against the State, would be legal action against the people who live here, my neighbors and my family members who pay your's and the Attorney General's salaries; that hardly seems just. Why can't you simply DO YOUR JOBS as paid public servants and demonstrate some ethical integrity? Stop trying to blow smoke up my proverbial skirt, and stop abdicating responsibility for performing your legal duties with ethical integrity. You are public servants with an obligation to serve the people; are you aware that it is the people who are the State of Washington? The State of Washington is not the public mental health and social service systems. Protecting the criminals who are public servants that commit felony crimes, and victimize vulnerable people whom the State has a duty to protect, is not serving the people, i.e. the State of Washington. 

Respectfully,

Becky Murphy

A doctor of psychiatry and his medical instruments

When one realizes that Human Rights crimes are legally mandated but it's called providing "effective medical treatment" to people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, who don't know what's good for them (because they supposedly have a lack of insight) it's truly stunning.  I realized this was happening when I was a kid---I have been aware way too long to be polite sometimes...The fact that a minority of people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia actually benefit from taking the neuroleptic drugs; but that everyone who takes them faces serious risks to their overall health is not relevant, and neither is determining if the person Court Ordered is among the minority of people the drugs help. The Nation's top psychiatrists, and grassroots mental health advocates for the "seriously mentally ill" lobby for public policies and Legislation so that more people can benefit from psychiatric treatment "for their own good." (and 'protect' society)

The fact that psychiatric treatment commonly results in iatrogenic illness and disability and leads to a decades earlier death is a well established; an obviously accepted, if not intended, outcome. It's plain that disability and early death is the most commonly achieved Real World Outcome for people treated by psychiatry; particularly for people who are diagnosed with schizophrenia. Obviously, words like "safe" "effective" and "treatment" had to be re-defined for psychiatry's clinical standards of care; the terms, "clinical care standards," "best practices" and "off label prescribing priveledges" have also been redefined by psychiatry. Psychiatrists who write, recommend, and use drug based treatment protocols and algorithms and who teach students and other medical professionals to use them, must believe that disability and early death are beneficial to patients; acceptable, desirable treatment outcomes and perhaps even deluded enough to believe that consensus is a substitute for ethical medical research. Doctors of psychiatry, leading psychiatric researchers and public mental health policy makers are providing a standard of care with consistent, reliable results; unfortunately, the most probable outcome is death. This bewing the case, one can understand how perjury and forgery have simply been re-defined, they are now part of psychiatry's standard of care which are supported by the specious claim that teratogenic drugs treat undefined "chemical imbalances" and unidentified "brain diseases" which psychiatrists believe may be causing "mental illnesses;" more accurately described as, psychiatric diagnoses. Unsubstantiated claims are the so-called "evidence" that standard clinical practices are based upon. The neuro-biological disease and/or chemical imbalance hypotheses are, at best, slurs which stigmatize; at worst, they are fraudulent claims made in order to deprive people of their human rights based on eugenic theory repackaged then marketed to the masses as valid, ethical "medical science."

People with a psychiatric diagnosis have their Human Rights violated as a matter of course; the rights most people take for granted. Mental health professionals have a moral and an ethical duty to preserve the fundamental human rights of people whom they give a psychiatric diagnosis. Instead, mental health professionals and 'patient advocates' support legally diminishing what are inalienable rights---but what the hell, safe and effective treatment is not actually safe or effective so what is a little deprivation of one's human rights in order to medically treat the diseases psychiatrists voted into existence! Even clinical care standards are determined by pseudo-democratic political process. The standards are not based on ethical, scientific research; or any ethical medical standards used by any other field of science based medicine. Psychiatry uses the Courts to strip patients of their human rights, psychiatry does not conform to legal standards i.e. Rules of Evidence, and Standard Court Procedures, that are required for for every other type of Court Proceeding, whether civil or criminal.

The nature of psychiatric diagnoses and the effects of the drugs is not relevant in commitment proceedings. No where in our society is psychiatry held to the ethical standards other medical specialties are; not even the ethical standards which are legally mandated by International Law for Clinical Research conducted by Medical Doctors on human subjects. Psychiatry is practiced in a dishonest, unethical manner. There is no evidence that the psychiatric profession values the ethical standards of science, medicine or the law. There is no evidence of psychiatry being compelled by an altruistic intent or that it values or is even aware of a primary ethical duty to psychiatric patients. Patients are disabled and killed at alarming rates by teratogenic drugs and shock treatments prescribed "for their own good."

What psychiatrists do not explain is why the ethical standards of science, medicine or the law do not apply to the practice of psychiatry. What psychiatrists do not explain is why fraud, corruption, and lying in professional journals, textbooks, classrooms and to students and professionals is acceptable. What psychiatry needs to explain is why outright lying and using analogies to explain psychiatric symptoms and coercing "treatment compliance" is ethically acceptable. Dishonesty is not honorable, defense of dishonesty shows an utter lack of ethical integrity.

Why does a group of professionals that is so dishonest and unethical have Police Powers? Courts of Law have lowered all of the ethical legal standards for psychiatry so that the Courts and Police have in effect, become medical instruments used to strip patients of their inalienable rights to force compliance with psychiatric treatment. Rules of evidence do not apply to the "evidence" used against psychiatry's patients, and the lowered legal standard is claimed to be necessary for the patient/victim's "benefit."

It is patently obvious that the lower standards in scientific medical and legal arenas serve primarily to keep facts hidden. Lowered Court standards serve to protect psychiatry while failing to protect psychiatric patients or serve the Justice interests of society as a whole. The same patient can be seen by 3 psychiatrists and get 3 distinctly different diagnoses. Psychiatric diagnoses cannot truthfully be called "diseases." Teratogenic drugs and electrical shocks, both of which cause iatrogenic damage and dysfunction, cannot be truthfully called "safe and effective medical treatments."  Without lowered legal standards, a psychiatrist would not be able to offer "evidence" that a person has a "brain disease" requiring "safe and effective medical treatment." If the Rules of Evidence applied, a psychiatrist could offer little, if any, evidence that would support a petition forcing involuntary psychiatric "treatment."

Lowering scientific, medical and legal standards is necessary, but it is not done to provide "necessary medical treatment" that is "safe and effective." I suspect if any of psychiatry's claims were supported by scientific findings, or grounded in ethical medical principles, i.e. based on facts instead of  subjective opinions, innate biases, errors of attribution, and distorted research; psychiatry would not need to pervert and distort the truth. Police Officers have an ethical duty, an Honor Code, "To Protect and To Serve."  Courts of Law have an ethical duty to apply the law equally to all, as if the Courts were blind to special interests; not biased in favor of predetermined outcomes. In effect, to be blind to subjective biases; basing legal rulings on objective evidence offered in compliance with the rules of evidence, adhering to standard legal procedures. Why has human society allowed psychiatry to subjugate the role of Police Officers and Courts of Law to that of serving the interests of psychiatry? Police Officers and Courts of Law now are performing their jobs as if their ethical duty has become primarily to serve psychiatry as "medical instruments."  Police Officers and Courts of Law serve all of society by enforcing the Law, and preserving individual rights. Service in preservation of Blind Justice is honorable when done with integrity. It is a shameful disgrace; a blight on all humanity when it is not.

via Leonord Roy Frank


A SIGN FOR CAIN
An Exploration of Human Violence
FREDRIC WERTHAM, M.D.



The Geranium in the Window
THE "EUTHANASIA" MURDERS
If the physician presumes to take into consideration in his work whether a life has value or not. The consequences are boundless and the physician becomes the most dangerous man  in the state.

DR. CURISTOPH HUPELAND

(1762-1836)

IF we want to understand violence as a whole, we cannot leave any of its major manifestations in a fog of half-knowledge. But this is exactly what has happened with an unprecedented occurrence of mass violence, tile deliberate killing of large numbers of mental patients, for which psychiatrists were directly responsible. To both the general public and the psychiatric profession, the details and the background are still imperfectly known. This is not only a chapter in the history of violence; it is also a chapter in the history of psychiatry. Silence does not wipe it out, minimizing it does not expunge it. It must be faced. We must try to understand and resolve it. read here

Picture Credit: Just Ducks