Criminal Procedure – Involuntary medication

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Criminal Procedure – Involuntary medication

A presentence detainee may be involuntarily medicated in order to restore competency for sentencing.

“The courts that have rejected involuntary treatment plans as insufficiently individualized seemingly did so to prevent the prison medical staff from having ‘carte blanche to experiment with … dangerous drugs or dangerously high dosages of otherwise safe drugs.’ Evans, 404 F.3d at 241; see also United States v. Chavez, 734 F.3d 1247 (10th Cir. 2013); Hernandez-Vasquez, 513 F.3d at 917. At the Sell hearing the government detailed a specific treatment plan, including dosage amounts, and a detailed plan to address any side effects. The district court discussed this treatment plan at length and left very little doubt that Breedlove would be medicated according to this plan. It did not reiterate every detail in the pro-posed treatment plan, including dosage levels, but those were clearly defined in the treatment plan. Given the detail of the treatment plan, we find that the district court’s analysis here is sufficient to ensure that the prison medical staff does not have unfettered authority to experiment with varying dosage levels or different medications. The cases Breedlove cites to support his argument that maximum dosage is an absolute requirement involve drastically different factual situations—those cases invariably involve unrestricted discretion to the medical staff or vague treatment plans based on little or no evidence of the defendant’s individual condition. See, e.g., Hernandez-Vasquez, 513 F.3d at 917; Chavez, 734 F.3d at 1253. Due to the government’s detailed treatment plan, the concerns the Ninth and Tenth Circuits dealt with in those cases are not implicated. We are therefore content that the district court’s instructions and reference to the government’s detailed treatment plan satisfied its burden under Sell, even if a maximum dosage was not explicitly included in the district court’s order.”

Affirmed.

13-3406 U.S. v. Breedlove

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Kapala, J., Cudahy, J.

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