Legal Question in Criminal Law in California

Drugs, mental illnes, and warrant

My Aunt member suffers from severe bipolar disorder/Schizophrenia and other mental disorders. She wants to get �better� but has no direction. She has a past record of drugs abuse and being placed in mental hospitals. She now has a warrant for her arrest, from what I understand, for possession and not appearing in court, multiple times. My family is now fed up with her trying to make the �right decisions� to help her self and is now going to intervene. She has other health problems and we feel she should detox in a hospital. Also if she goes to jail and is not properly medicated her mother fears she may try to commit suicide. She has history of attempted. Can she detox some where she can be anonymous and deal with the warrant after she is off drugs and properly medicated? Or is there another way to go about doing this? Her mother is going to make sure the warrant is taken care of either way but also wants to make sure her daughter is safe(meds and detoxing with medical help). Any advice you can give us will be much appreciated. Thank you for your time.


Asked on 3/21/07, 9:32 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Terry A. Nelson Nelson & Lawless

Re: Drugs, mental illnes, and warrant

You have a couple approaches. You could seek a conservatorship over her and control her medical treatment involuntarily. You could try to convince her to voluntarily go into rehab/detox, but you can't commit her against her will anymore.

Either way, she needs an attorney to appear on the warrant(s) and convince the court to deal with her illness, by accepting the drug rehab as her sentence. Feel free to contact me for such help, if the case is in SoCal.

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Answered on 3/22/07, 2:49 pm


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