We’re Innocent until Proven Guilty, but Not Sane until Proven Nuts: Psychiatric Incarceration Too Easily Violates One’s Legal Rights

     In a tale sounding like a bad B flick plot, Florida resident Demoree Hadley ended up in two psychiatric institutions for fourteen days because of false accusations from her mother about her mental health. Florida psychiatrist Daniel Bober acted on them immediately, rather than investigate their truth.

     Hadley has now filed a conspiracy lawsuit for which she has body cam evidence of, among other things, local deputies claiming to be a “mobile crisis unit” as they coerce her into the back of a pickup truck. They then  hauled her off to Memorial Regional Hospital in  Hollywood Florida for a mental health evaluation after a doctor signed the paperwork saying she was a danger to herself.

     That put her under the rules of Florida’s Baker Act, a law similar to those in other states which allow forced psychiatric  incarceration if one is deemed a danger to oneself or others. Demoree’s mother had falsely reported to authorities that her daughter was suicidal and had been abusing prescription drugs. Her incarceration was based solely on her mother’s and the psychiatrist’s opinions, not on any actual facts.

     At the hospital a drug test was given Demoree and it showed her free of any drugs or medication. She herself said she had never been or acted suicidal, but psychiatrist Boben chose to believe the mother’s false report rather than Demoree’s own statements. He ordered her to undergo an evaluation for the next thirty-eight hours and then diagnosed her with “unspecified psychosis.”

     At that point Demoree’s mother, CEO of Rok Nation, petitioned to have Demoree transferred to the nearby Life Skills psychiatric treatment center. Court documents show that her mother had again claimed Demoree suffered from “severe drug abuse,” and the court judge granted the petition, even though Demoree had just tested clean for any drug use.

     Dr. Bober is the medical director at the Life Skills facility, but he claimed he played no part in the decision to have her transferred there. She was then held there for almost two weeks against her will.

     Demoree requested a hair follicle drug test after she arrived at Life Skills, and it showed she had had no  drugs or medication in her system for at least the  previous three months. At that point her mother voluntarily dropped her case and Demoree was discharged with a diagnosis of “persistent depressive disorder,” a claim she also denies is true. Demoree has since filed a lawsuit alleging a conspiracy between her mother, Dr. Bober, hired guards, and local deputies to illegally incarcerate her under Florida’s Baker and Marchman Acts. 

     Apparently Demoree’s mother, Desiree Perez, who owns Rok Nation with rapper Jay-Z, has also harassed her daughter and her husband with other false accusations over the last three yeas, and Demoree’s s husband has been falsely jailed three times because of those allegations.

     The outrageous theatrics of the apparent conspirators aside, the fact that Demoree could have her legal rights violated and be forced into psychiatric incarceration solely on the word of her mother and a complicit psychiatrist – acting on fabricated allegations – shows these laws need to be amended to protect people’s constitutional rights much more vigorously.

     If one is accused of a crime in this country, one is deemed innocent until proven guilty. No such impartial court now exists to put psychiatric allegations on hold, when necessary, until they can be verified as valid or actually “life  threatening.”

     Until then too many nameless victims – unlike this high publicity case – will disappear into psychiatric units to be held, drugged, and electroshocked without any recourse from having their civil rights so violated.