Doctors and government officials can no longer use the term “excited delirium” as a valid medical diagnosis or cause of death for those who die while in police custody in California.
“Excited delirium is not a reliable, independent medical or psychiatric diagnosis,” Mr. Gipson said in a statement after the legislation passed the Assembly in April. “From the beginning, this terminology has been disproportionately applied to communities of color and has only been used in specific contexts pertaining to encounters with law enforcement.”
Mr. Gipson said he wrote the measure after the death of U.S. Navy veteran Angelo Quinto, 30, who died after being restrained by Antioch, California, police in December 2020.
Beyond banning the term from official use, the bill will prohibit state and local government agencies, employees, and contractors from testifying in court or documenting that “excited delirium” is a recognized medical diagnosis or cause of death.
Coroners, medical examiners, physicians, and physician assistants also won’t be allowed to use the term as an underlying cause of death on a death certificate or any report, and law enforcement will be prohibited from using the term to describe anyone in a police report.
The law now also prohibits the term from being used as evidence in any civil court action.
According to a state Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on the bill in September, the state expects to spend $50,000 from its general fund for the Department of Public Health to develop a system to identify the prohibited term and notify medical examiners, coroners, physicians, or others who submit a death certificate using the term that it can’t be completed until the cause of death has been changed.
The California Public Defenders Association supported the legislation.
“Excited Delirium is not a medical diagnosis and the use of certain pharmacological interventions solely for a law enforcement purpose without a medical diagnosis or reason is opposed by major medical and psychiatric associations,” the association said in a statement, according to a legislative analysis of the bill.
The bill passed the Assembly in May with a 75–0 vote, with five assembly members abstaining. It passed the Senate 31–1, with state Sen. Kelly Seyarto, a Republican, voting against it.
Mr. Seyarto’s office didn’t respond by press time to a request by The Epoch Times for comment about his opposition to the bill.
George Floyd Death Shines National Spotlight on Term
The use of the term “excited delirium” has undergone a complete reversal in policy over the past few years, prompted by the high-profile death of George Floyd in 2020.In 2009, the American College of Emergency Physicians studied the use of the term and determined that the condition was a unique syndrome that can be identified by a group of characteristics.
However, it received national attention after Floyd died during an encounter with police on May 25, 2020, in Minneapolis. During court trials for the police officers involved, defense attorneys argued that Floyd’s “excited delirium” justified the use of force, but the judge in the case was skeptical of the explanation.
The association noted that ketamine, an FDA-approved medication for anesthesia, is frequently used to treat the condition, and emergency medical technicians often use the drug to treat people suspected of having the condition when detained by police.
The medical association also denounced the term as a sole justification for law enforcement’s use of excessive force and affirmed its stance that police brutality was a product of structural racism and that racially marginalized and minority communities were disproportionately subject to police force and racial profiling.
