Psychiatric Nursing: Patient Admits To Crime - No Civil Rights Violation In This Case
Legal Eagle Eye Newsletter for the Nursing Profession
September 1997
Quick Summary: The nurse, physicians and the hospital were not liable. They did not arrest, detain or interrogate the patient or violate his constitutional rights.
The patient voluntarily presented himself in the emergency room. He complained about a blackout that preceded a cocaine binge. He asked for psychiatric treatment.
The nurse questioned the patient about the circumstances leading up to coming to the hospital seeking a psychiatric admission. The patient voluntarily answered her questions.
The patient admitted he must have committed an armed robbery during his blackout to get the $1400 he found he had with him to go on his cocaine binge. At this point the nurse properly got a hospital security guard to sit with the patient, who was still free to leave, told the physician and called the police.
Once voluntarily admitted to the hospital, the patient was put in a locked observation room, but was still free to ask to leave, and did not have to answer the physicians’ questions. UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT, ILLINOIS, 1997.
When a patient comes in voluntarily for mental health reasons, a nurse can and must obtain a full history. The history, among other things, must include what it was that brought the patient to the emergency room seeking treatment.
If the patient voluntarily discloses that he or she has just committed a crime, the nurse can take appropriate safety measures and call the police. The nurse and the hospital are not to be held liable in a civil lawsuit for damages if the authorities decide to come to the hospital and arrest the patient for the criminal conduct the patient has voluntarily disclosed, while the patient is still choosing to remain at the hospital voluntarily for assessment or treatment.
According to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, when a nurse takes a psychiatric history from a voluntary mental health patient, the nurse is not engaged in custodial interrogation and is not in a position to violate the patient’s civil or constitutional rights. Custodial interrogation as defined by Miranda vs. Arizona (U.S. Supreme Court, 1966) is questioning initiated by law enforcement officers after they have taken the person into police custody or deprived the person of his or her liberty in a significant fashion. The suspect must know the suspect is speaking with a government agent and has been coerced into custody, the court said, before Miranda rights become an issue.
No person in this patient’s circumstances could have believed he was in the custody of the government, while giving a history in the emergency department or while remaining in an observation room on the inpatient psychiatric unit. He knew he was in a hospital where he had voluntarily chosen to go for medical and psychiatric treatment.
The court threw out all the convoluted allegations the patient made in his suit of a conspiracy joined in by the nurses, doctors, hospital security staff, the local police and the FBI. Copeland vs. Hosspital, 964 F. Supp. 1225 (N.D. Ill., 1997).