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Welf. & Inst. Code, § 5151 · Article 1. Detention of Persons with a Mental Health Condition for Evaluation and Treatment

Welf. & Inst. Code, § 5151

Verbatim from the official edition

Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)

(a) If the facility designated by the county for evaluation and treatment admits the person, it may detain the person for evaluation and treatment for a period not to exceed 72 hours from the time that the person was first detained pursuant to Section 5150. Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays may be excluded from the period if the State Department of Health Care Services certifies for each facility that evaluation and treatment services cannot reasonably be made available on those days. The certification by the department is subject to renewal every two years. The department shall adopt regulations defining criteria for determining whether a facility can reasonably be expected to make evaluation and treatment services available on Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays.

(b) Prior to admitting a person to the facility for treatment and evaluation pursuant to Section 5150, the professional person in charge of the facility or a designee shall assess the individual to determine the appropriateness of the involuntary detention. This assessment shall be made face-to-face either in person or by synchronous interaction through a mode of telehealth that utilizes both audio and visual components.

Notes and commentary — not statutory text

History

Amended by Stats. 2022, Ch. 960, Sec. 2. (AB 2275) Effective January 1, 2023.

Source of truth

Edition
As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
Official file
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=WIC&sectionNum=5151.
Text hash
sha256 d915163d78ded3773040914866465c90191c2599a02e7d93a43e2c4fd29d6854
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compose_ca.py 2026-10-22: the Legislative Counsel's CAML content files read by a tokenizer (caml_readers.reader_a); an independent xml.etree reading (caml_readers.reader_b) agrees on every section

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