Ohio Code 5122.21 – Discharging involuntary patients
(A) The chief clinical officer shall as frequently as practicable, and at least once every thirty days, examine or cause to be examined every patient, and, whenever the chief clinical officer determines that the conditions justifying involuntary hospitalization or commitment no longer obtain, shall discharge the patient not under indictment or conviction for crime and immediately make a report of the discharge to the department of mental health and addiction services. The chief clinical officer may discharge a patient who is under an indictment, a sentence of imprisonment, a community control sanction, or a post-release control sanction or on parole ten days after written notice of intent to discharge the patient has been given by personal service or certified mail, return receipt requested, to the court having criminal jurisdiction over the patient. Except when the patient was found not guilty by reason of insanity and the defendant‘s commitment is pursuant to section 2945.40 of the Revised Code, the chief clinical officer has final authority to discharge a patient who is under an indictment, a sentence of imprisonment, a community control sanction, or a post-release control sanction or on parole.
Terms Used In Ohio Code 5122.21
- Chief clinical officer: means the medical director of a hospital, community mental health services provider, or board of alcohol, drug addiction, and mental health services, or, if there is no medical director, the licensed physician responsible for the treatment provided by a hospital or community mental health services provider. See Ohio Code 5122.01
- Community mental health services provider: means an agency, association, corporation, individual, or program that provides community mental health services that are certified by the director of mental health and addiction services under section 5119. See Ohio Code 5122.01
- Conviction: A judgement of guilt against a criminal defendant.
- Court: means the probate division of the court of common pleas. See Ohio Code 5122.01
- Defendant: In a civil suit, the person complained against; in a criminal case, the person accused of the crime.
- Hospital: means a hospital or inpatient unit licensed by the department of mental health and addiction services under section 5119. See Ohio Code 5122.01
- imprisonment: means being imprisoned under a sentence imposed for an offense or serving a term of imprisonment, prison term, jail term, term of local incarceration, or other term under a sentence imposed for an offense in an institution under the control of the department of rehabilitation and correction, a county, multicounty, municipal, municipal-county, or multicounty-municipal jail or workhouse, a minimum security jail, a community-based correctional facility, or another facility described or referred to in section 2929. See Ohio Code 1.05
- Indictment: The formal charge issued by a grand jury stating that there is enough evidence that the defendant committed the crime to justify having a trial; it is used primarily for felonies.
- Jurisdiction: (1) The legal authority of a court to hear and decide a case. Concurrent jurisdiction exists when two courts have simultaneous responsibility for the same case. (2) The geographic area over which the court has authority to decide cases.
- Mental illness: means a substantial disorder of thought, mood, perception, orientation, or memory that grossly impairs judgment, behavior, capacity to recognize reality, or ability to meet the ordinary demands of life. See Ohio Code 5122.01
- Patient: means , subject to division (C)(2) of this section, a person who is admitted either voluntarily or involuntarily to a hospital or other place under section 2945. See Ohio Code 5122.01
- Person: includes an individual, corporation, business trust, estate, trust, partnership, and association. See Ohio Code 1.59
(B) After a finding pursuant to section 5122.15 of the Revised Code that a person is a person with a mental illness subject to court order, the chief clinical officer of the hospital or community mental health services provider to which the person is ordered or to which the person is transferred under section 5122.20 of the Revised Code, may grant a discharge without the consent or authorization of any court.
Upon discharge, the chief clinical officer shall notify the court that caused the judicial hospitalization of the discharge from the hospital.
Last updated March 10, 2023 at 12:58 PM