When Emergency Psychiatry Meets Criminal Court: The Civil-Criminal Overlap in New York

Stephan M. Carlson, MD, MBA, FAPA · Emergency Psychiatry and Civil Commitment

A person can be held in a psychiatric emergency room under the Mental Hygiene Law and charged with a crime at the same time. The two tracks run on different clocks toward different questions, and an opinion that blurs them is the easiest kind to discredit. Two systems, one patient A defendant brought to a Comprehensive Psychiatric Emergency Program (CPEP) after an arrest sits at the seam between civil and criminal law. On the civil side, a physician may admit the patient on an emergency basis when mental illness is likely to result in serious harm, under Mental Hygiene Law §9.39, which authorizes a holding period of up to fifteen days on emergency certification. On the criminal side, the sam

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