NCJ Number
85170
Date Published
1980
Length
37 pages
Annotation
This historical review of Texas laws dealing with mentally abnormal offenders from 1840 to 1977 shows about 10-year cycles of moving from restrictive to flexible statutes and back to restrictive statutes, along with cyclical shifts of responsibility from the judicial system to the mental health system.
Abstract
Current Texas law bearing upon mentally abnormal offenders provides for pretrial evaluations, competency hearings, competency and incompetency dispositions, and insanity dispositions. One of the newest and most troublesome areas of Texas law is the issue of 'manifest dangerousness' as determined by a review board of the Texas Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation. As of September 1, 1977, when persons have been civilly committed to the maximum security unit at Rusk State Hospital, they must be transferred to a nonsecurity unit within 60 days of admission to maximum security unless it can be determined that a person is manifestly dangerous. This new procedure allows an additional 30 days for the staff of the maximum security unit to gather all the data needed to make evaluations. Also, the membership of the review board has been changed to include only three psychiatrists licensed to practice medicine in Texas. If the superintendent of the facility at which the maximum security unit is located disagrees with the judgment of the review board, then the matter is referred for disposition to the Commissioner of the Texas Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation. Procedures and alternatives for dealing with mentally abnormal offenders in Texas are illustrated with charts, and 18 references are listed.