(a) When a patient, who is subject to judicial commitment, has escaped from a public mental hospital in a state of the United States other than California and is present in this state, a peace officer, health officer, county physician, or assistant county physician may take the person into custody within five years after the escape. The person may be admitted and detained in the quarters provided in a county hospital or state hospital upon application of the peace officer, health officer, county physician, or assistant county physician. The application shall be in writing and shall state the identity of the person, the name and place of the institution from which he or she escaped and the approximate date of the escape, and the fact that the person has been apprehended pursuant to this section.

(b) As soon as possible after the person is apprehended, the district attorney of the county in which the person is present shall file a petition in the superior court alleging the facts of the escape, and requesting an immediate hearing on the question of whether the person has escaped from a public mental hospital in another state within five years prior to his or her apprehension. The hearing shall be held within three days after the day on which the person was taken into custody. If the court finds that the person has not escaped from such a hospital within five years prior to his or her apprehension, he or she shall be released immediately.

(c) If the court finds that the person did escape from a public mental hospital in another state within five years prior to his or her apprehension, the superintendent or physician in charge of the quarters provided in the county hospital or state hospital may care for and treat the person, and the district attorney of the county in which the person is present immediately shall present to a judge of the superior court a petition asking that the person be judicially committed to a state hospital in this state. The hearing on the petition shall be held within seven days after the court’s determination in the original hearing that the person did escape from a public mental hospital in another state within five years prior to his apprehension. Proceedings shall thereafter be conducted as on a petition for judicial commitment of the particular type of person subject to judicial commitment. If the court finds that the person is subject to judicial commitment it shall order him or her judicially committed to a state hospital in this state; otherwise, it shall order him or her to be released. It shall be the duty of the superintendent of the state hospital to accept custody of the person, if he or she has been determined to be subject to judicial commitment. The State Department of State Hospitals will promptly cause the person to be returned to the institution from which he or she escaped if the authorities in charge of the institution agree to accept him or her. If the authorities refuse to accept the person, the superintendent of the state hospital in which the person is confined shall continue to care for and treat the person in the same manner as any other person judicially committed to the hospital as having a mental health disorder.

(Amended by Stats. 2014, Ch. 144, Sec. 127. (AB 1847) Effective January 1, 2015.)