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Dangerous Patients and the Tarasoff Doctrine

By Michael D. Brophy

In April of this year, previously sealed court records were opened in connection with the July 20, 2012, shooting attack at a Colorado movie theater. There, accused killer James Holmes allegedly caused 12 deaths and left more than 70 victims injured. The unsealed records confirmed previously unsubstantiated reports that circulated soon after the shootings: Holmes had been under treatment by a psychiatrist at the University of Colorado. In fact, Holmes' psychiatrist, Dr. Lynne Fenton, had told campus police one month before the attack that her patient had homicidal thoughts, that he had threatened and intimidated her, and that, in Dr. Fenton's professional opinion, Holmes constituted a danger to the public at large.'

The report on Holmes that Dr. Fenton gave to campus police fulfilled a legal requirement to notify local officials of dangerous patients, and was consistent with the mandate of the California Supreme Court's seminal decision, rendered 37 years before, in Tarasoff v. Regents of the University of California, 17 Cal.3d 425 (1976) (en banc).

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