Enemy Mind

Laura's Law

While a specified group of individuals may request an investigation to determine is a person qualifies for a Laura’s Law program, only the County mental health director, or his or her designee, may file a petition with the superior court for a hearing to determine if the person should be court ordered to receive the services specified under the law.

A person may be placed in an assisted outpatient treatment if, after a hearing, a court finds that the following criteria have been met. The patient must:

• Be eighteen years of age or older
• Be suffering from a mental illness
• Be unlikely to survive safely in the community without supervision, based on a clinical determination
• Have a history of non-compliance with treatment that has either:

1. Been a significant factor in his or her being in a hospital, prison or jail at least twice within the last thirty-six months; or
2. Resulted in one or more acts, attempts or threats of serious violent behavior toward self or others within the last forty-eight months

• Have been offered an opportunity to voluntarily participate in a treatment plan by the local mental health department but continue to fail to engage in treatment
• Be substantially deteriorating
• Be, in view of his or her treatment history and current behavior, in need of assisted outpatient treatment in order to prevent a relapse or deterioration that would likely result in the person meeting California's inpatient commitment standard, which is being:

1. A serious risk of harm to himself or herself or others; or
2. Gravely disabled (in immediate physical danger due to being unable to meet basic needs for food, clothing, or shelter);

• Be likely to benefit from assisted outpatient treatment; and
• Participation in the assisted outpatient program is the least restrictive placement necessary to ensure the person's recovery and stability.

If the court finds that the individual meets the statutory criteria, the recipient will be provided intensive community treatment services and supervision by multidisciplinary teams of highly trained mental health professionals with staff-to-client ratios of not more than 1 to 10, and additional services, as specified, for persons with the most persistent and severe mental illness. The law specifies various rights of the person who is the subject of a Laura’s Law petition as well as due process hearing rights. The bill also provides for voluntary settlement agreements as an alternative to the hearing process.

Rotary International is an international service organization whose stated purpose is to bring together business and professional leaders in order to provide humanitarian services, encourage high ethical standards in all vocations, and help build goodwill and peace in the world. It is a secular organization open to all persons regardless of race, color, creed, religion, gender, or political preference. There are 34,282 clubs and over 1.2 million members worldwide.The members of Rotary Clubs are known as Rotarians. Members usually meet weekly for breakfast, lunch or dinner, which is a social event as well as an opportunity to organize work on their service goal. 

41 “Can you catch a crocodile[a] with a hook and line? Or put a noose around his tongue? 2 Can you tie him with a rope through the nose, or pierce his jaw with a spike? 3 Will he beg you to desist or try to flatter you from your intentions? 4 Will he agree to let you make him your slave for life? 5 Can you make a pet of him like a bird, or give him to your little girls to play with? 6 Do fishing partners sell him to the fishmongers? 7 Will his hide be hurt by darts, or his head with a harpoon? 8 “If you lay your hands upon him, you will long remember the battle that ensues and you will never try it again! 9 No, it’s useless to try to capture him. It is frightening even to think about it! 10 No one dares to stir him up, let alone try to conquer him. And if no one can stand before him, who can stand before me? 11 I owe no one anything. Everything under the heaven is mine. 12 “I should mention, too, the tremendous strength in his limbs and throughout his enormous frame. 13 Who can penetrate his hide, or who dares come within reach of his jaws? 14 For his teeth are terrible. 15-17 His overlapping scales are his pride, making a tight seal so no air can get between them, and nothing can penetrate. 18 “When he sneezes, the sunlight sparkles like lightning across the vapor droplets. His eyes glow like sparks. 19 Fire leaps from his mouth. 20 Smoke flows from his nostrils, like steam from a boiling pot that is fired by dry rushes. 21 Yes, his breath would kindle coals—flames leap from his mouth. 22 “The tremendous strength in his neck strikes terror wherever he goes. 23 His flesh is hard and firm, not soft and fat. 24 His heart is hard as rock, just like a millstone. 25 When he stands up, the strongest are afraid. Terror grips them. 26 No sword can stop him, nor spear nor dart nor pointed shaft. 27-28 Iron is nothing but straw to him, and brass is rotten wood. Arrows cannot make him flee. Sling stones are as ineffective as straw. 29 Clubs do no good, and he laughs at the javelins hurled at him. 30 His belly is covered with scales as sharp as shards; they tear up the ground as he drags through the mud. 31-32 “He makes the water boil with his commotion. He churns the depths. He leaves a shining wake of froth behind him. One would think the sea was made of frost! 33 There is nothing else so fearless anywhere on earth. 34 Of all the beasts, he is the proudest—monarch of all that he sees.”