FORT SMITH -- A federal magistrate has recommended the government not force medication on a 74-year-old man to make him mentally competent to stand trial.
In a report and recommendation filed Monday, U.S. Magistrate James Marschewski wrote that there is evidence the mental problems that kept James Curtis of Kentucky in government custody for nearly two years were caused by a brain injury from a 2009 fall from a ladder and not from a mental disease or defect as held by the government.
He has recommended that Curtis undergo a mental evaluation for the next 45 days to determine if his mental condition creates, citing federal law, "a substantial risk of bodily injury to another person or serious damage to property of another."
U.S. District Judge P.K. Holmes III will have to decide whether to adopt Marschewski's report and recommendation.
Marschewski made his recommendation after a Nov. 18 hearing prompted by an 8th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in May that said the government failed, before ordering Curtis to be involuntarily medicated, to "consider all the circumstances relevant to the particular defendant and to consider the entirety of the consequences of the proposed involuntary medication."
During the hearing, a Eureka Springs psychiatrist retained for Curtis, Gerald Stein, testified that Curtis had suffered a serious head injury from the 2009 fall. After that, according to Stein's report, Curtis began to be suspicious and paranoid about law enforcement and others and to experience hallucinations.
Stein testified about a statement from Curtis, who said he saw a male deputy with a halo and false breasts when he went to refill a prescription at a pharmacy, according to Marschewski's report.
He testified that the occurrence of Curtis' bizarre hallucinations would mean the government's diagnosis of delusional disorder was incorrect and that no amount of anti-psychotic medication would remove his delusions, Marschewski wrote in his report.
"In light of all of the factors of this case and the guidelines set forth, the court does not believe that it is in the defendant's best interest, in light of his medical condition, to force upon him anti-psychotic medication and believes that the better course would be a determination concerning the dangerousness of the defendant without medication," Marschewski wrote.
Curtis was arrested Jan. 29, 2012, after a Fort Smith police officer found him sleeping in his Jeep Cherokee outside the U.S. attorney's office. Records show Curtis told the officer he was waiting for the U.S. attorney's office to open so he could talk to one of the attorneys. The officer found three handguns, a rifle, 1,700 rounds of ammunition and a machete in the vehicle.
Curtis was indicted in April 2012 on a charge of possession of a firearm after having been committed to a mental institution. According to court records, Curtis was 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.
Curtis has not been tried yet on the charge. A mental evaluation at the Federal Medical Center in Butner, N.C., after his indictment concluded he suffered from delusional disorder, persecutory type, but that receiving anti-psychotic medication would restore him to competence so he could stand trial.
Curtis was treated briefly with risperidone that government doctors said restored him to reality, but Curtis objected to the involuntary treatment. After his involuntary treatment was upheld by Holmes, Curtis appealed to the 8th Circuit, which ordered the further consideration by the district court, resulting in Marschewski's report and recommendation Monday.
NW News on 11/27/2014