O.C.G.A.

O.C.G.A. § 37-3-42 (2019)

Emergency admission of persons arrested for penal offenses; report by officer; entry of report into clinical record

✓ O.C.G.A. — 2019 edition (Public.Resource.Org Release 73)

Code text and O.C.G.A. statutory annotations on this page reflect the 2019 Official Code of Georgia Annotated (Public.Resource.Org Release 73, 2019-08-21; public domain per Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). The Syfert case-law annotations in Notes of Decisions, below, are current.

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(a) A peace officer may take any person to a physician within the county or an adjoining county for emergency examination by the physician, as provided in Code Section 37-3-41, or directly to an emergency receiving facility if (1) the person is committing a penal offense, and (2) the peace officer has probable cause for believing that the person is a mentally ill person requiring involuntary treatment. The peace officer need not formally tender charges against the individual prior to taking the individual to a physician or an emergency receiving facility under this Code section. The peace officer shall execute a written report detailing the circumstances under which the person was taken into custody; and this report shall be made a part of the patient’s clinical record. (b) Any psychologist may perform any act specified by this Code section to be performed by a physician. Any reference in any part of this chapter to a physician acting under this Code section shall be deemed to refer equally to a psychologist acting under this Code section. For purposes of this subsection, the term ‘‘psychologist’’ means any person authorized under the laws of this state to practice as a licensed psychologist.

History

Code 1933, § 88-504.3, enacted by Ga. L. 1969, p. 505, § 1; Ga. L. 1978, p. 1789, § 1; Ga. L. 1981, p. 996, § 4; Ga. L. 1987, p. 3, § 37.

Annotations

Cross references. - Arrest of persons, T. 17, C. 4. Licensing of applied psychologists, T. 43, C. 39.

JUDICIAL DECISIONS No authority to take defendant into custody. - Officers were not acting within the scope of their lawful authority when they took the defendant into custody because they did not have a physician’s certificate or court order as required by O.C.G.A. § 37-3-41, and it was undisputed that the defendant had not commit-

ted, nor was the defendant suspected of committing, a penal offense as mandated by O.C.G.A. § 37-3-42(a). Boatright v. State, 327 Ga. App. 785, 761 S.E.2d 176 (2014). Cited in Benham v. Edwards, 501 F. Supp. 1050 (N.D. Ga. 1980).

OPINIONS OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL Medical admissions county was a county in which the procedure was

governed by Ga. L. 1969, p. 505. 1972 Op. Att’y Gen. No. U72-29.

RESEARCH REFERENCES ALR. - Validity, construction, and application of overt act requirement of state statutes providing for commitment of sex-

ually dangerous persons, 56 A.L.R.6th 647.

Notes of Decisions

Cited in 4 cases, 1985–2014 · leading case: Durrence v. State, 695 S.E.2d 227 (Ga. 2010).

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Durrence v. State, 695 S.E.2d 227 (Ga. 2010). · cites it 2× “See OCGA § 37-3-42 (emergency admission for person believed to be mentally ill).”

Boatright v. State, 761 S.E.2d 176 (Ga. Ct. App. 2014). · cites it 6× “” 13 In the absence of either of the foregoing, OCGA § 37-3-42 (a) permits a peace officer to seize an individual for an involuntary mental-health examination “if (1) the person is committing a penal offense, and (2) the peace officer has probable cause *789 for believing that…”

Baldwin v. State, 325 S.E.2d 128 (Ga. 1985). · cites it 2× “OCGA § 37-3-42. However, the appellant was transferred that night to a hospital in Duluth and the following day he was released for transport to Northside Hospital’s mental health facility.”

Richard Boatright, Jr. v. State (Ga. Ct. App. 2014). · cites it 6× “”13 In the absence of either of the foregoing, OCGA § 37-3-42 (a) permits a peace officer to seize an individual for an involuntary mental-health examination “if (1) the person is committing a penal offense, and (2) the peace officer has probable cause for believing that the…”

Annotations are extracted automatically from the opinions in the Syfert caselaw corpus and ranked by authority, recency, and treatment. Dots show Syfertize treatment of the citing case itself.