For whom the bell tolls: Silver Alerts raise concerns regarding individual rights and governmental interests.

The Silver Alert system was initially created to help protect missing persons who have cognitive impairments, particularly the elderly. The Silver Alert is modeled after the Amber Alert, created to help locate and safeguard missing children. Unlike the Amber Alert, however, in most states the Silver Alert applies to the elderly, adults with a mental impairment, or both, depending on the state. The goal of the Silver Alert system is the quick dissemination of information about missing persons to law enforcement personnel as well as to the general public. Previously, states notified law enforcement personnel of missing persons through teletype to other public safety jurisdictions to enlist their assistance in the retrieval of the missing person. Silver Alert programs substantially expand the notification to include the general public, who receive information through radio and television broadcasts as well as highway billboards. The programs serve a legitimate governmental interest by protecting a vulnerable population from possible harm. Yet, the implementation of these alerts can have unintended consequences, including the possible violation of an individual's right to privacy. Such consequences require careful consideration.

Commentary: so the pendulum swings--making sense of the duty to protect.

Psychiatry has been struggling for nearly 40 years to make sense of the duty to protect. The great jurisdictional disparity as to what constitutes the duty has been a significant contributing factor. The American Psychiatric Association (APA) released the Model Statute in 1987 to establish a framework to guide legislators and courts toward consensus, to some effect. In response to case law and statutory requirements in most states, psychiatric practice has incorporated the assessment of risk to third parties by patients as an essential element of psychiatric assessment and care. Although court cases shortly after the Tarasoff decision expanded the scope and breadth of the duty to protect, in recent years there appears to have been a shift toward a more narrow interpretation as to what conditions must exist to find a defendant psychiatrist guilty of failing to exercise the duty properly. The threshold for the duty to warn or protect often rests precariously beside the criteria permitting an exception to confidentiality, placing the psychiatrist in a tenuous position. If appellate verdicts continue to find for the defendant psychiatrist in cases claiming a breach of the duty to protect, it could have an impact on how psychiatrists assess and manage threats made by patients toward third parties.

Commentary: medicine, law, and Howard Zonana.

Collaboration between physicians and attorneys seems inherently unnatural because of the traditionally disparate aspects of the human condition that each addresses, with the health of mind and body the domain of Medicine, and the preservation of rights and property the considered realm of Law. At a time when it was not en vogue for physicians and attorneys to work together, Howard Zonana recognized the value of this partnership and fostered a model of collaboration from which society has greatly benefited.

Commentary: Biases that affect the decision to conditionally release an insanity acquittee.

The care and management of hospitalized insanity acquittees can be quite challenging. As patients progress in treatment, clinicians must invariably address whether the patient is ready to be returned to the community, balancing the liberty interests of the acquittee with the protection of society. The process by which this determination is made is far from simple and involves review of clinical interview and collateral information, identification of indicators of outcome post-discharge, and the use of structured risk assessment instruments. The decision to release an acquittee conditionally is also influenced by an array of factors that emanate from within the clinician, within the institution, the mental health system, the courts, and the broader society. While such biases affect a clinician's objectivity, they are also a natural part of the evaluation process. Their identification is essential so that the degree to which such biases influence the conditional release decision can be more fully understood and addressed.