This link explains the behavioral health treatment available in Louisiana, whether for substance abuse or mental illness. It contains links to the following forms to request involuntary commitment.
Mental Health Services | La Dept. of Health
The coroner (that’s who is appointed for this) could fill out this form to commit someone involuntarily on an emergency basis for mental health treatment. It appears to be for a limited time.
https://ldh.la.gov/assets/docs/Beha...rms/OBH 2 Coroner's Emergency Certificate.pdf
Once a person is hospitalized, the hospital can use this form to ask the court for the patient to be held longer. At this point, Lacey would have been provided a court-appointed attorney to represent her if she didn’t have an attorney.
https://ldh.la.gov/assets/docs/Beha...r Judicial Commitment - Hospital-Facility.pdf
Or parents could have filled out this form and submitted it directly to the court asking for involuntary treatment. Again, Lacey would have an attorney. The court would decide if Lacey qualified.
https://ldh.la.gov/assets/docs/Beha...ition for Judicial Commitment - Non-Legal.pdf
Of course, it’s always possible that the court may not have agreed to involuntary commitment, depending on doctor’s reports and the arguments of Lacey’s attorney or testimony of Lacey herself. But it seems that under the circumstances, when she initially parked herself on the couch, she could have been assessed and involuntarily committed to get treatment for whatever mental illness or disability she suffered from. Better to do it earlier than later. Of course, for parents, hope springs eternal, so it would no doubt have been hard to decide to force Lacey into treatment. It seems that after she seemingly “balked” and they backed down, things gradually went from bad to worse to a point of no return. Parenting a mentally ill adult is a huge challenge, but tough decisions must be made even if your adult child hates you for it in the moment. But like others, I also wonder if there was abuse that Lacey could have revealed to doctors.
So far, we only have Lacey’s parents word for how this all transpired for so many years. I suspect that the reason it took so long for an arrest was a thorough investigation to get enough evidence that would hold up at trial.
JMO