Why?
On the other hand, people who report a crime, get somebody else arrested, and then go back on their word should have SOME consequences for that act.
Um, aren't both of the above the same hand, since both are justifications for the state's action in this case?
Way too much nanny state for me. No thanks.
When somebody is not just an idiot but deluded, and that delusion may result in their death, I'm more inclined to think intervention is o.k. It's the same thinking that undergirds petitions to appoint an adult guardian or to involuntarily commit. Which are well-established functions of government, back long before we were worried about creeping socialism and Big Government.
The two instances I proposed are NOT fingers on the same hand. Reporting a crime and then taking it all back is generally considered a crime: if you were lying, then you just got somebody arrested for no reason (a major trauma for them and false report of a crime for you, usually a misdemeanor but sometimes a felony); if you were telling the truth, now you are compounding a felony (also a crime).
Again, this was the law a LONG time ago, not just recently.