Before Gunfire in Colorado Theater, Hints of ‘Bad News’ About James Holmes - NYTimes.com

James Holmes

Prof. Lynne Fenton, M.D.

 James Holmes sent a package to his psychiatrist not long before the dreadful shooting at the movie theater. His defense lawyers have demanded its return as a privileged communication between patient and physician.  Some assert that it reported his plans.  The police report that four months before the June 12 events he said he would kill people "when his life is over".  State laws often  require reporting a "serious" threat to others, as this article from the American Journal of Psychiatry discusses..  In Colorado Colo. Rev. Stat. § 13-21-117 provides that confidentiality of communications shall be maintained 

except where the patient has communicated to the mental health care provider a serious threat of imminent physical violence against a specific person or persons. When there is a duty to warn and protect under the circumstances specified above, the duty shall be discharged by the mental health care provider making reasonable and timely efforts to notify any person or persons specifically threatened, as well as notifying an appropriate law enforcement agency or by taking other appropriate action including, but not limited to, hospitalizing the patient.

Holmes doctor notified a police "threat assessment team". Did James Holmes's psychiatrist Dr. Fenton do enough?  Is there a supportable claim against her by the victims of her patient who killed 12 and wounded 58  in the Dark Knight rises movie theater massacre?  What about the police who apparently inaccurately assessed the threat? - GWC
Before Gunfire in Colorado Theater, Hints of ‘Bad News’ About James Holmes - NYTimes.com: by Erica Goode, et al.

 "At one point, his psychiatrist, Dr. Lynne Fenton, grew concerned enough that she alerted at least one member of the university’s threat assessment team that he might be dangerous, an official with knowledge of the investigation said, and asked the campus police to find out if he had a criminal record. He did not. But the official said that nothing Mr. Holmes disclosed to Dr. Fenton rose to the threshold set by Colorado law to hospitalize someone involuntarily."

'via Blog this'