Read the following case study and answer the questions which follow. Use APA formatting.
In December 1981, Darrell Burch was found wandering along a Florida state highway with bruises, cuts and was disoriented. A person driving by picked him up and took him to a mental health center in Tallahassee which found that he was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and in need of long-term treatment. A few days later Burch was transferred to Florida State Hospital. While at these facilities, Burch signed voluntary admission and consent-to-treatment forms. He remained at Florida State Hospital for five months, and soon after his release, he filed a complaint, stating he was inappropriately committed. He also stated that he did not remember signing any admission or treatment forms during or before his stay at the hospital. The complaint reached the Florida Human Rights Advocacy Committee which encouraged Burch to proceed with his grievance. In February of 1985, Burch filed a lawsuit in federal district court against both Apalachee Community Mental Health Services (the community mental health center in Tallahassee where he was first taken) and Florida State Hospital. In the lawsuit he stated that his constitutional rights had been violated when he was treated as a voluntary patient: because of evidence that his mental condition made him incapable of giving voluntary consent, he was entitled to the procedural safeguards of the involuntary placement procedure.
At the time Mr. Burch was first admitted to Florida State Hospital, who ultimately had the power to make the final decision to admit him? Why?
Was Mr. Burchs consent actually necessary for him to be admitted to either facility? If so which one(s)?
Do you believe that Mr. Burch was non compos mentis, and that the hospital should have followed a different route? Explain.
After reading through the case, do you think the Supreme court decision has had any impact on the treatment of mentally ill patients in similar situations?
