Lanterman–Petris–Short Act

We went in 1969, we're starting to transition from a system of very large institutions where people were held for mental illnesses indefinitely, to a community-based system where people were to be held for finite periods of time, and that it was to be a fairly rigorous process known as conservatorship in order to compel care.

It was known as the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act of 69.

So that set up the system that Christopher Carlyle tried to use In 2018, he first tried to go to conservative court himself to try to compel care for his daughter, and it failed.

Then, and her name is, by the way, Califia Carlisle.

A judge appoints a conservator, and for one year, that conservator decides where the person lives and what medication he takes.

The law is called Lanterman-Petris-Short, and it is the most forceful tool the state has.

That is what happened to Nick Reiner, and it happened in confidence.

The conservatorship was confidential by law, and it became public only in January 2026, when a newspaper reported it a month after the deaths.

A judge appoints a conservator, and for one year, that conservator decides where the person lives and what medication he takes.

The law is called Lanterman-Petris Short, and it is the most forceful tool the state has.

That is what happened to Nick Reiner, and it happened in confidence.

The conservatorship was confidential by law, and it became public only in January 2026, when a newspaper reported it a month after the deaths.

But as America's civil rights revolution expanded in the 1960s, lawyers and activists began to look toward the mentally ill and ask the question: What gives the government the right to lock this person up? If someone hadn't committed a crime, how long could the government imprison them because of something they might do? Was being mentally ill enough? Was behaving strangely enough? What if a person didn't want treatment? And who got to decide? These questions would fundamentally change American mental health law, and California would become one of the first states to answer them.

In 1967, California Governor Ronald Reagan signed a bipartisan law called the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act.

The legislation had an explicit purpose: to end what its authors described as the inappropriate and indefinite involuntary commitment of people with mental illness.

Under the new system, involuntary detention would be limited.