Texas Emergency Detention Order: Fill & Download for Free

In the state of Texas, a patient can be held up to 48 hours during a weekday and up till 1:00 pm on Mondays after a weekend. It is called an Emergency Detention Warrant. (EDW). An EDW can be filed by anyone who believes that persons are in danger of hurting themselves, hurting someone else, or in need of psychiatric stabilization due to symptoms of psychosis, hallucinations, paranoia, etc. Once an EDW has been filed, a Constable or police officer will bring the patient to the hospital whereby the patient will be assessed by a psychiatrist.Even though the patients have rights, after the EDW has been filed, the only professional who can discharge the patient is a psychiatrist. A psychiatrist has to see the patient within 24 hours of admission.Once the patient is admitted and deemed unsafe to discharge after 48 hours, a doctor can request an Order of Protection to be filed on the patient. This order is signed by a judge indicating the hospital can keep the patient longer as an “involuntary patient.”A Constable will deliver papers to the hospital usually the next day indicating who the patient’s attorney will be and the dates of court appearances. You have a right to go before a judge and plead your case and you have the right to consult with your attorney any time.A doctor can discharge the patient prior to the court hearings and the Order of Protection doesn’t apply anymore. A doctor can also allow a patient to sign in as a voluntary patient and at that time, the Order of Protection is null and void.

Not exactly.Donald Trump thinks he can do anything he wants. His order today begins:By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1101 et seq.) (INA), the Secure Fence Act of 2006 (Public Law 109 367) (Secure Fence Act), and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (Public Law 104 208 Div. C) (IIRIRA) …These cited laws are indeed in place. The Secure Fence Act passed in 2006 by Congress and signed by President Bush authorized financing and construction of “The Wall” by Homeland Security along the 2000-mile U.S.-Mexico border.$100 million of the funds appropriated for that law remains unspent.George W. Bush and Barack Obama put up 700 miles of the secure fence in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California, excluding the Rio Grande and other rivers.That doesn’t leave 1200 miles of border waiting for a “wall” from Donald Trump. The “wall” was finished.Newsweek wrote about The Wall last March as a campaign issue:The border in Texas also isn't owned by the government, so much of the land that abuts it is private. In 2006, when some of these landowners refused to sign away the rights to their land so that the fence could be built, the government condemned the land and sued the landowners.After that was done, the government had to waive 36 laws to build the fence, some related to Native American land and environmental issues.Could all of this be an issue again, should Trump decree that a wall must be built? Umm, yesSee that? They had to waive U.S. laws. They had to seize private property. That’s the kind of trouble other Presidents had trying to wall off the U.S. — years before Donald Trump announced, “We’ll build a wall, folks.”What else might stand in Trump’s way? Maybe our treaty with Mexico.Or maybe not.In 1970, the U.S. promised not to interfere with the waterways that separate Mexico from Texas and Arizona. We’ve all heard Donald Trump threaten to pull us out of “treaties” he doesn’t like.But Trump’s directive today refers to “the contiguous land border between the U.S. and Mexico” explicitly excluding the Rio Grande and other rivers and implicitly keeping our promise not to build The Wall over water.BTW: If you’re thinking that a Wall is not a Fence, consider this: Trump’s executive order defines a “Wall” as a “wall or other similarly secure, contiguous, and impassable physical barrier”. Like, e.g., a fence.That’s right. The Wall can be a fence according to Donald J. Trump.Last year, Newsweek wrote:As Al Jazeera America correspondent Paul Beban pointed out after speaking with several border patrol officers, "If you build a 30-foot wall, all it's going to do is create a market for 31-foot ladders."Trump has a new solution for illegal immigrants who get over, under or around his wall/fence. He’s instructed Homeland Security to hire 5,000 new border patrol agents — a plan he cannot execute until Congress approves it. Trump’s assurances he’ll get Mexico to "reimburse” the U.S. won’t change anything.Those Mexicans caught by Border Patrol will face a new contemplated Trump policy: Prosecution for illegal entry into the U.S.Instead of sending captured Mexicans back where they came from, Donald Trump wants to lock them up in any of several private prisons in the border states, at U.S. taxpayer expense. Illegal entry is a crime that carries jail time. 8 U.S. Code § 1325 - Improper entry by alienPrivate prisons love this solution. They make $5.1 billion a year on immigrant detentions, according to activist-writer Aviva Shen. And California, Texas and Arizona run the biggest private prisons in the country.Those prisons aren’t big enough to hold all the Mexicans captured by the Border Patrol. Yet.But that’s not a problem. We can build more.

In the Great State of Texas a constable is a constitutionally required elected county office. They are divided into precincts along with the elected justice of the peace. Constables and their deputies are sworn peace officers with every power and responsibility that a sheriff or deputy sheriff has - with the exception being that constables don't operate a jail (they may have detention lock-up cells in their offices, but these are only used until the prisoner is transferred to the county jail at the sheriff’s office).Texas constables specialize in the service of court documents, frequently issued from their local justice court, but may serve any court document including federally issued papers. They also enforce court orders, such as evictions and writs of sale after execution of judgment. But they also serve criminal arrest warrants, and enforce traffic laws.I remember one lunch I was eating with some coworkers when a man approached out table. “Excuse me, I don't mean to intrude. But the people I'm dining with are from London, and they've never seen uniformed constables wearing handguns before. Can they talk to you, please?” We spent a lovely time explaining what constables do in Texas, and posed with them (our guns prominently displayed at their request) for photos.Some Texas constables offices have several hundred deputies, such as Harris County (Houston). Some communities contract with their local constable to provide law enforcement services, so if they have an emergency and dial 9–1–1 they will get a deputy constable to respond. These offices have their own separate detective divisions, and may also work on area lakes and in county parks as patrol officers.Of course, because they serve court papers constables are frequently called “mailmen with guns and badges”. But except for my years commanding a regional narcotics task force, I have to say being a deputy constable was the best law enforcement job I've held in my 30+ year career!