SB741: Involuntary commitment hearings; law students may represent
petitioner without practicing attorney.
Chief Patron
Sen. Ken Cuccinelli (R-37)
As if the legal representation and the proceedings in front of “special” justices (not magistrates, not judges, commitment hearings is all they do), don’t already treat us as second class citizens undeserving of the full protections of the court sytem before we are deprived of our liberty and endangered by harmful drugs and psychologically and physically dangerous hospitals without commiting any crime, now we don’t get real lawyers? Why not go back to the “good” old days when any doctor or husband could sign his wife into the state hospital on his own word and stop pretending we have any legal protections and procedures at all?
