Perhaps naively, I assume county health officials had some evidence to produce to the court. The man was not summarily locked up by doctors without due process, and is due for another court hearing next month.
This sounds to me like a good balance between protecting the public and respecting the man's Constitutional rights.
Well that’s fine... that info wasn’t in the original article posted, and there seems to be an attitude here that “they wouldn’t have locked him up if he wasn’t guilty”. Which is not a solid basis for running a free society.
PHOENIX A judge has refused to change the quarantine conditions for a T-B patient who’s been locked up in a hospital jail ward in Phoenix for nine months...Daniels had to listen to the court proceedings yesterday by telephone because he has an extremely drug-resistant tuberculosis which he contracted while living in Russia. And a judge refused to allow him to testify after health officials accused him of being dishonest and an irresponsible health threat. Daniels was sent to the hospital jail ward in August. Health officials declared him a public health threat because he refused to abide by medical rules while living at a sanitarium...
He was diagnosed two years ago in Russia, and said he came to Phoenix in January 2006 after being told drugs were hard to get and expensive.
Daniels went to a Phoenix hospital with respiratory problems in July 2006, and was sent to a Phoenix halfway house for indigent TB patients under a voluntary quarantine. He was ordered to continue treatment and wear a mask when he went out in public because the disease is spread by airborne contact.
Daniels stopped taking his medication and went unmasked to a restaurant, a convenience market and other stores, court records stated.
Robert England, Maricopa County’s tuberculosis control officer, said in court filings that Daniels understands the rules, but “merely refuses to follow them.”
England applied for and received a “compulsory detention” order for Daniels, a legal tool used about once a year in Arizona.
Daniels, who has a wife and child in Russia, said in a telephone interview with The Arizona Republic that he didn’t want to confuse people by wearing a mask
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported there were 14,097 cases of TB in the United States last year. Just 15 were of the rare strain Daniels has. Prospects for his release are unclear.
A 2006 medical assessment indicated the disease was mutating in Daniels.
http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/daily/local/43554.php