CHAPTER 483

An Act to amend and reenact §§ $7-1.1 and 87-61, as amended, of the
Code of Virginia, relating, respectively, to certain definitions ap-
plicable to Title 87 of the Code and to the issuance of warrants with
respect to persons alleged to be mentally ill, epileptic, mentally de-
ficient or inebriate.

[H 473}

Approved March 31, 1964

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia:

1. That §§ 37-1.1 and 37-61, as amended, of the Code of Virginia be
amended and reenacted as follows:

§ 87-1.1. As used in this title, the following words shall have the
meaning ascribed to them:

(1) “Mentally ill” means any person afflicted with mental disease to
such an extent that for his own welfare or the welfare of others, or of the
community, he requires care and treatment;

(2) “Mentally deficient” means any person afflicted with mental
defectiveness from birth or from an early age to such extent that he is
incapable of managing himself and his affairs, who for his own welfare
or the welfare of others or of the community requires supervision, control
or care and who is not mentally ill or of unsound mind to such an extent
as to require his commitment to an institution for the mentally ill;

(3) “Commissioner” means the Commissioner of Mental Hygiene
and Hospitals;

(4) “Department” means the Department of Mental Hygiene and
Hospitals;

(5) “Board” means the State Hospital Board;

(6) “Legal resident’? means any person who has lived in this State
for a period of one year without public support for himself or his spouse
or minor children;

(7) “Justice” or “trial justice” includes the judges of county and
municipal courts and their associates, substitutes and assistants, and
police justices or civil and police justices of cities, but except as herein-
after provided shall not include a justice of the peace or mayor;

(8) A “‘dotard” is a person of advanced years whose mental processes
have been weakened or impaired, but who shows no delusional formation,
Fee enone, behavior or emotional variations characteristic of mental
illness ;

(9) “Insane” means a person who has been adjudicated legally in-
competent by a court of record or other constituted authority because of
mental disease;

(10) ‘Feeble-minded” means a person who has been adjudicated
legally incompetent by a court of record or other constituted authority
because of intellectual defect;

(11) “Hospital” means a hospital for the care and treatment of the
mentally ill;

(12) “Colony” means the Lynchburg Training School and Hospital,
the Petersburg Training School or the department for colored epileptics
at the Central State Hospital, Petersburg.

§ 37-61. Any circuit or corporation judge, or any trial justice, as
elsewhere defined in this chapter, when any person in his county or city
is alleged to be mentally ill, epileptic, mentally deficient or inebriate, upon
the written complaint and information of any respectable citizen, shall
issue his warrant, ordering such person to be brought before him. The
judge or justice may issue the warrant on his own motion.

In any county in which no trial justice resides, the judge of the
circuit court may appoint one justice of the peace in such county to
assist him in carrying out the duties and powers conferred by this title.
Each justice of the peace so appointed by the judge shall serve under the
supervision and at the pleasure of the judge making the appointment and
shall be vested with all the powers conferred by this title on trial justices.