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 ...
Fair enough, but at least let there be some sort of court order so that the guy has the ability to challenge it. We are talking about the government here. Are you really confident that if you were quarantined that the government would make a point of letting you out as soon as possible? That you would be treated properly while detained, etc? I am not objecting to his being quarantined. I am objecting to the government having the power to detain you indefinitely on the whim of a bureaucrat.
Yes because the government should be allowed to detain citizens on the whim of a bureaucrat.
“ACLU - just defending the civil rights of all persons who fit their anti-American agenda.”
So you believe it’s American to put a sick person who hasn’t been convicted of a crime in jail?
From what I’ve read the ACLU isn’t trying to get the guy released, just moved to something like a hospital isolation ward.
Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
Why does there always have to be one loser in the crowd who throws reason into the mix?
Don't you know better than to interrupt the building of a lynch mob with thoughts and facts?
Go away now, we're busy - This guy needs 'a hangin...
Col Sanders
What in the heck are you talking about?
In a South African outbreak, samey-same. 80% of the XDR-TB patients were also HIV/AIDS positive. Over 50 of 53 died, so I guess it is self limiting if they can be quarrantined...
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