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ACLU says Maricopa County violated TB patient's rights (by quarantining him in jail)
Arizona Star ^ | May 31, 2007

Posted on 05/31/2007 6:45:51 AM PDT by Zakeet

The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit claiming Maricopa County officials have violated the rights of a quarantined tuberculosis patient for months by treating him like a criminal.

The U.S. District Court complaint filed Wednesday on behalf of Robert Daniels alleges that health officials and the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office have violated numerous constitutional rights and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The suit seeks what it calls appropriate accommodations for Daniels, rather than severe and "inhumane" jail conditions.

"It's good news for me," Daniels said Wednesday evening. "I finally have a chance to get out of this black hole."

[Snip]

Daniels moved to Arizona in January 2006 after contracting extreme multi-drug-resistant TB. Daniels, who spent his teen years in Scottsdale, said he returned to the U.S. from Russia in search of work and a college education.

Months later, after he became severely ill, Daniels was placed in a county sanitarium for indigent TB patients. Dr. Maricela Moffitt, a county physician, has testified that Daniels failed to take his medications and that decreased the likelihood that last-chance drugs would cure his deadly disease.

Moffitt claims Daniels endangered others by going out in public and entertaining visitors without wearing a mask.

[Snip]

In his defense, Daniels has insisted that he did not understand the contagiousness or gravity of his condition.

(Excerpt) Read more at azstarnet.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: aba; aclu; tb
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To: chessplayer
Heard on FoxNews last night that Daniels does`nt understand why he`s being treated so badly.

Then he is mentally incompetent and must be isolated for the public good. You have no right to endanger the public health. This is a shot at publicity.

21 posted on 05/31/2007 6:58:25 AM PDT by Edgerunner (If leftists don't like it, I do. Keep your powder dry...)
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To: Clam Digger

It is about time. WE have a TB epidemic, 13,000 cases a year. Sometimes I think the Public Health sector just ignores epidemics to enrich the health care sector. One night I found a doc doing research on drug resistant TB. The only thing he had found to control it was nicotine. So I use that as a comeback to docs who ask me to stopsmoking. You control TB, first.


22 posted on 05/31/2007 6:59:23 AM PDT by ClaireSolt (Have you have gotten mixed up in a mish-masher?)
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To: chessplayer

Daniels is not the guy who went to Greece. This is a different guy, an older case. But he certainly sounds like a dummy.


23 posted on 05/31/2007 7:00:56 AM PDT by 3AngelaD (They've screwed up their own countries so bad they had to leave, now they're here screwing up ours.)
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To: Zakeet

The ACLU can contact all those people which had ‘German measles’ up through the 1950s. They were quarantined also. Signs on home doors read, “No one out. No one in!”


24 posted on 05/31/2007 7:04:19 AM PDT by moonman
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To: Zakeet; All
I believe the ACLU has a point, other than the one on top of their heads.

We should place Mr. Daniels in a luxury suite in a swanky hotel.

And, since the ACLU attorneys don’t think it’s any “big deal” having Mr. Daniels around other people, they should move in with him.

Or at LEAST give him an INTERNSHIP at their offices.

25 posted on 05/31/2007 7:04:19 AM PDT by Mr. Jazzy (Very Proud Dad of LCpl Smoothguy242 USMC of 1/3 Marines, now fighting for freedom, on duty in Iraq.)
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To: chessplayer
That explains why he was in such a hurry (he was afraid he was going to die) to get back to the US to get top notch treatment.

Is this Daniels guy the same one that had flown to europe and back?

26 posted on 05/31/2007 7:04:29 AM PDT by joshhiggins (O you who believe! do not take the MUSLIMS for friends)
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To: joshhiggins
Is this Daniels guy the same one that had flown to europe and back?

No.

27 posted on 05/31/2007 7:14:52 AM PDT by lepton ("It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into"--Jonathan Swift)
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To: Zakeet
"It's good news for me," Daniels said Wednesday evening. "I finally have a chance to get out of this black hole."

Just who in the hell does this jackass think he is? And screw the ACLU. This rotten organization is so darn anti-American they should be rode on a rail out of the US. Better still lets just get the lawyers for the ACLU to visit him and hope this nut coughs.

28 posted on 05/31/2007 7:19:40 AM PDT by Logical me (Oh, well!!!)
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To: chessplayer

This is a different guy.


29 posted on 05/31/2007 7:27:19 AM PDT by DuncanWaring (The Lord uses the good ones; the bad ones use the Lord.)
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To: RacerF150
Just what I thought. This is what we have come to because of the way AIDS, another communicable disease altho the media would have you believe otherwise, is treated.
30 posted on 05/31/2007 7:27:50 AM PDT by pepperdog
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To: ClaireSolt

GOOD! Another reason not to quit. Thank you!


31 posted on 05/31/2007 7:34:51 AM PDT by Clam Digger
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To: Zakeet

This will be an interesting legal battle. Manadatory quarantines, from the thread of the guy with TB who flew in from Europe, haven’t been done since 1963. That’s before the ADA, which the ACLU is citing. If anything, it will help clarify the law. But this guy needs to be isolated if he refuses to mitigate the risks he poses to the community.


32 posted on 05/31/2007 7:38:25 AM PDT by doc30 (Democrats are to morals what an Etch-A-Sketch is to Art.)
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To: TexasAg1996

This is a different guy from the story that broke yesterday.


33 posted on 05/31/2007 7:39:21 AM PDT by doc30 (Democrats are to morals what an Etch-A-Sketch is to Art.)
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To: Zakeet
What about the civil rights of the populace to not be infected by an individual who has total disregard for his contagious disease?

I see this as no different than someone with AIDS engaging in unprotected sex with someone without telling them they are infected.

I wonder who the ACLU would support in such a case?

34 posted on 05/31/2007 7:42:06 AM PDT by magellan
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To: doc30

From what I know, this drug resistant TB developed and is spread in prisons. So is AIDS, btw. These men may well be excons. WE have a huge flap over prisons just waiting to take off.


35 posted on 05/31/2007 7:44:17 AM PDT by ClaireSolt (Have you have gotten mixed up in a mish-masher?)
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To: Clam Digger

Isn’t that the sad truth. There’s a reckoning coming.


36 posted on 05/31/2007 7:45:40 AM PDT by Noumenon (The Koran is the Mein Kampf of a religion that has always aimed to eliminate the others - O. Fallaci)
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To: Vigilanteman

WHEN are these pos the aclu going to be held accountable for frivolous lawsuits and WHY does the taxpayer foot the bill for them! WHAT on earth is this world coming to.


37 posted on 05/31/2007 7:51:37 AM PDT by Jazzman1 (l)
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To: doc30

Yep. Although both have the Russian connection.


38 posted on 05/31/2007 8:05:35 AM PDT by PBRSTREETGANG
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To: Zakeet
>Dr. Maricela Moffitt, a county physician, has testified that Daniels failed to take his medications and that decreased the likelihood that last-chance drugs would cure his deadly disease. <

If an individual is determined to expose innocents to a deadly, communicable disease, then the authorities are duty bound to quarantine him.

The ACLU needs to pound sand.

39 posted on 05/31/2007 8:50:03 AM PDT by Darnright ( "Sharpness is a bourgeois concept." Henri Cartier-Bresson)
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To: Zakeet

So I guess we found someone who wants to take they guy in?


40 posted on 05/31/2007 9:07:52 AM PDT by Red in Blue PA (Truth : Liberals :: Kryptonite : Superman)
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