Forced-medication case returned to judge

FORT SMITH -- The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that a federal judge in Fort Smith must determine whether it is appropriate for the government to involuntarily medicate a 74-year-old Kentucky man to make him mentally competent to stand trial.

In a ruling issued last month, the court said U.S. District Judge P.K. Holmes III, who adopted a report and recommendation by U.S. Magistrate Judge James Marschewski, correctly decided that involuntary medication is likely to restore James Curtis to competency.

But the recommendations did not follow a 2003 court precedent to also "consider all of the circumstances relevant to the particular defendant and to consider the entirety of the consequences of the proposed involuntary medication."

The 8th Circuit sent the case back to the district court to make that determination; the mandate was filed Wednesday in Fort Smith. No hearing on the case has been scheduled.

Curtis has been in federal custody since Jan. 29, 2012, after a Fort Smith police officer found him sleeping in his Jeep Cherokee parked on federal property outside the U.S. attorney's office. According to an FBI affidavit, Curtis told the officer he wanted to talk to one of the attorneys and was waiting for the office to open.

When asked by the officer, Curtis admitted he had weapons with him and the officer found three .45-caliber pistols, a .308-caliber rifle and many rounds of ammunition in the vehicle, according to the affidavit.

Curtis also admitted to the officer that he had been treated at a state hospital and that he was not supposed to have the firearms, the affidavit stated. The 8th Circuit opinion recounted that Curtis had been committed to the Western State Hospital in Kentucky for nine days in April 2010 after he threatened police with a gun during a domestic dispute.

He was indicted in federal court in April 2012 on one count of possession of a firearm after having been committed to a mental institution.

Holmes ordered Curtis to undergo a mental evaluation at the Federal Medical Center in Butner, N.C., where doctors confirmed his diagnosis from Kentucky of delusional disorder, persecutory type. The doctors concluded he was mentally incompetent to stand trial but that it was likely he could be restored to competence by receiving antipsychotic medication.

Curtis had been treated in Kentucky with doses of risperidone, after which records showed Curtis was "able to carry on a reality based conversation without evidence of paranoid ideas," the 8th Circuit opinion stated.

The doctors at Butner recommended that Curtis be treated with risperidone because of the effect it had on him in Kentucky. They also recommended that Curtis be forced to take the drug because he refused treatment.

Curtis, through his court-appointed attorney James Pierce, objected to involuntary treatment in February 2013 and asked for a hearing based on Sell v. United States, 539 U.S. 166 (2003).

According to the Sell case, the 8th Circuit wrote, the government has to pass four tests before it can force treatment on a person: That there was an important government interest, that of restoring Curtis' competence to stand trial; that involuntary treatment would significantly further that interest; that involuntary treatment was necessary to further that interest; and that administration of the drug was medically appropriate.

After a hearing in April 2013, Marschewski ruled that the government had met its burden on all four tests and recommended to Holmes that Curtis be forced to take the medication. Curtis filed notice of appeal of the recommendation to the 8th Circuit on May 15, 2013.

Curtis' appeal argued that the government failed to prove two of the tests: That involuntary treatment would further the government interest in rendering Curtis competent and that administering the drug was medically appropriate.

The court ruled the district court did not err in finding that the treatment likely would restore Curtis' competence but sent the case back to Fort Smith to determine whether administering the drug was medically appropriate.

Metro on 05/25/2014

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