Right to counsel
A federal court held that in Michigan civil commitment cases, “the respondent has the right to legal counsel and, if indigent, to appointed counsel, to assist him at every step of the commitment proceedings; and further that he must be notified of this right at the outset of the proceedings. Bell v. Wayne Cty. Gen. Hosp. At Eloise, 384 F. Supp. 1085, 109 (E.D. Mich. 1974). The court relied on In re Gault, 387 U.S. 1 (1967) (finding right to counsel for juveniles in delinquency proceedings) as well as decisions from other federal courts.
The Sixth Circuit has also considered the right to counsel for the rights of people subjected to civil commitment proceedings. See Doe v. Austin, 848 F.2d 1386 (6th Cir. 1988). The Doe court listed the procedural requirements established by the U.S. Supreme Court in Vitek v. Jones, 445 U.S. 480 (1980) for incarcerated persons being involuntarily transferred to a mental health facility, and the list included the provision of “qualified and independent assistance”. The Doe decision stated:
Without question, due process requires that mentally retarded adults in Kentucky receive, at a minimum, the procedural safeguards listed above. If these basic safeguards are required before an [incarcerated person] is transferred from a prison to a mental hospital, surely a person thought to [have intellectual disabilities] must be afforded at least the same level of protection before being removed from an ostensibly unfettered existence in society to the confines of an institution.
The court rejected the idea that the participation of the parents of the proposed ward would qualify, stating that “such assistance could hardly be deemed to be independent.’
