SB1164

SB1164 expressly adds inability to recognize mental-illness symptoms or appreciate treatment’s risks and benefits to several detention and inpatient-treatment standards, while revising documentation, transport handoff and filing-location rules. It does not make disagreement with treatment alone sufficient for detention: mental illness, the applicable harm findings and the safeguards for the particular stage still matter. Emergency detention is not the same decision as a court’s later order for inpatient treatment. Final law, sections 1, 4–6 and 8–11.

For warrantless detention, an officer must have reason to believe and actually believe that mental illness causes one of the listed conditions—substantial risk of serious harm, severe emotional distress and deterioration, or inability to recognize symptoms or appreciate treatment’s risks and benefits. The officer must also believe the person is likely without immediate detention to suffer serious risk of harm or inflict serious harm on another, and that there is insufficient time to obtain a warrant. The act makes corresponding changes for a guardian transporting an adult ward and for magistrates deciding detention warrants. A magistrate must still find imminent harm and that necessary restraint cannot be achieved without emergency detention. Final law, sections 1, 4–5.

A physician’s emergency-admission statement must address the listed mental-illness-related conditions, imminent risk and detention as the least restrictive means of necessary restraint, with detailed supporting information. The new symptom-awareness wording does not erase that examination or permit indefinite detention. The act does not amend the separate preliminary-examination timing and custody limits in section 573.021. Final law, section 6; Prior Health and Safety Code 573.021; Prior Health and Safety Code 573.022.

For temporary and extended court-ordered inpatient services, the act rewrites the distress, deterioration and treatment-decision criteria, expressly adds inability to recognize symptoms or appreciate treatment’s risks and benefits, and adds a finding of likely serious risk of harm or harm to another without the relevant inpatient services. Clear-and-convincing evidence remains required. The evidence provisions require expert testimony and a recent overt act or continuing behavior pattern tending to confirm either serious-harm likelihood and distress/deterioration, or the specified inability to recognize symptoms or appreciate treatment; the temporary-order provision retains its waiver language for act-or-pattern evidence. A medical certificate must identify the applicable criterion and include the physician’s harm opinion. These are not automatic commitments based solely on a diagnosis. Final law, sections 8–10.

Extended orders retain the additional requirements concerning a condition expected to continue more than 90 days and at least 60 consecutive days of qualifying court-ordered inpatient services during the preceding year. The existing exception to that prior-treatment finding for someone already subject to an extended-services order remains. The act also leaves the existing treatment-duration limits and specified serious-injury criminal-charge restrictions in sections 574.034 and 574.035 untouched. Final law, sections 9–10; Prior Health and Safety Code 574.034; Prior Health and Safety Code 574.035.

The updated emergency-detention form adds contact details, age and child-specific safety/parent-notice prompts, restraint reasons, call location and observations or history. Officers and qualifying emergency-medical transport personnel may leave after appropriate facility staff take custody and the detention notification is supplied; they need not wait for screening, treatment or insurance verification. This does not authorize leaving a person without a handoff. The existing bar on demanding an additional form as a condition of temporary admission remains. Final law, sections 2–3; Prior Health and Safety Code 573.002.

Applications for court-ordered services can expressly be filed where the person was apprehended or is located when the application is filed, alongside the retained residence and specified treatment locations; the existing special rule for children in Texas Juvenile Justice Department custody remains. Separately, the act revises what a physician evaluates within 24 hours in the temporary-detention procedure linked to an existing outpatient-services order. That is not a new universal 24-hour deadline replacing the separate emergency-examination rule. Final law, sections 7 and 11; Prior Health and Safety Code 574.001; Prior Health and Safety Code 574.064; Prior Health and Safety Code 573.021.

Signed June 20, 2025, the act took effect September 1, 2025. Its chapter 573 changes apply to emergency detentions beginning on or after that date; earlier detentions retain prior law. Chapter 574 changes apply to applications or proceedings submitted or occurring on or after that date, regardless of the date of a charged offense. Official history; Final law, sections 13–15.