How immediate must one's risk of harm be to self or others to be involuntarily held for psychiatric evaluation in the US?

Question

What are the criteria and standard of posed danger for someone to be deprived of liberty on psychiatric grounds in the US?

I suppose the supreme court has ruled on this matter in a way that would be consequential federally, and it does seem like a highly constitutional type of issue, although I am also interested in the situation specifically in Florida.

If an assessor states that "Client has no family history of suicide. Client has been verbalizing passive suicidal ideations to his family over the past few days but has never attempted suicide and has never organized suicidal plan," (emphasis added) then it seems clear that the harm posed was not definite or immediate. Would this nonspecific and presumably somewhat distant risk of self harm be enough to meet the standard for psychiatric commitment?

Would there be an obligation to inquire as to the basis and reason for their abstract/"passive" suicidal ideations to ensure that it was objectively baseless and down to a mental psychiatric condition?

Answer 1

In Colorado, the relevant standard is that the person "appears to have a mental illness and, as a result of such mental illness, appears to be an imminent danger to others or to self or appears to be gravely disabled." Colorado Revised Statutes § 27-65-101 et seq.

The standard is very similar in Florida where the applicable statute is called the Baker Act a.k.a. the Florida Mental Health Act (s. 394.463, F.S. Ch. 65E-5.280, FAC, statutory language available here), although it is worded slightly differently:

A person may be taken to a receiving facility for involuntary examination if the following three criteria are met:

1. There is reason to believe that he or she is mentally ill. This means an impairment of the mental or emotional processes that exercise conscious control of one’s actions or of the ability to perceive or understand reality, which impairment substantially interferes with a person’s ability to meet the ordinary demands of living, regardless of etiology. For the purposes of this part, the term does not include retardation or developmental disability as defined in Chapter 393, intoxication, or conditions manifested only by antisocial behavior or substance abuse impairment.

2. Because of his or her mental illness the person has refused voluntary examination or is unable to determine whether examination is necessary;

and

3. Without care or treatment, the person is likely to suffer from neglect resulting in real and present threat of substantial harm that can’t be avoided through the help of others; or there is substantial likelihood that without care or treatment the person will cause serious bodily harm to self or others in the near future, as evidenced by recent behavior.

Whether, in light of all of the facts and circumstances, a particular person meets that standard would typically be a question of fact for a court reviewing the decision in hindsight to determine, with considerable deference given to the person who mades the call.

Given the extreme consequences of a "false negative" that does not led to commitment and results in a death or serious injury, relative to the consequences of a "false positive" which leads to an unnecessary several days of commitment in a mental health facility, judges tend to give a person making a marginal call to commit a person the benefit of the doubt.