In the Matter of the Civil Commitment of: William Iverson. ( 2016 )

This opinion will be unpublished and
may not be cited except as provided by
Minn. Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3 (2014).
STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN COURT OF APPEALS
A16-0599
In the Matter of the Civil Commitment of: William Iverson
Filed October 17, 2016
Affirmed
Connolly, Judge
Washington County District Court
File No. 82-PR-08-3466
William Richard Iverson, St. Peter, Minnesota (pro se appellant)
Lori Swanson, Attorney General, Marsha E. Devine, Assistant Attorney General, St. Paul,
Minnesota (for respondent)
Considered and decided by Connolly, Presiding Judge; Worke, Judge; and Ross,
Judge.
UNPUBLISHED OPINION
CONNOLLY, Judge
Appellant, pro se, challenges the district court’s order providing for the involuntary
administration of neuroleptic medications, arguing that he is not mentally ill and does not
need treatment. Because the district court’s findings are not clearly erroneous, we affirm.
FACTS
Appellant William Iverson, born in 1955, was convicted of the second-degree
murder of his wife and incarcerated from 1983 to 1991. In 1997, he was convicted of the
first-degree assault of his former fiancée and again incarcerated. In 2009, while
incarcerated, he was committed as mentally ill and dangerous (MI&D) and transferred to
the St. Peter Regional Treatment Center/Minnesota Security Hospital (SPRTC/MSH).
Appellant has received psychiatric treatment, including neuroleptic medications,
intermittently since 1999, and a number of Jarvis orders have been issued to provide for
the involuntary administration of his neuroleptic medications for a two-year period.1
At the hearing on the 2016 petition for another Jarvis order authorizing appellant’s
involuntary treatment with neuroleptic medication, three people testified: the psychiatrist
who petitioned for the Jarvis order (the petitioner), another psychiatrist (the psychiatrist),
and appellant.
The Petitioner’s Testimony
The petitioner testified that appellant’s diagnosis was schizoaffective disorder, “a
chronic, lifelong, psychotic disorder that involves thought disorganization, delusions,
hallucinations and other psychotic features. . . . and also involves a mood component.” He
added that “There is no effective treatment for psychotic symptoms other than neuroleptic
medications.” When asked for appellant’s symptoms, he said:
1
See Jarvis v. Levine, 418 N.W.2d 139, 148-49 (Minn. 1988) (providing that medical
authorities seeking to treat a patient involuntarily with neuroleptic medications must first
obtain court approval).
2
[Appellant] has delusional thoughts. He has some delusional
beliefs. He also demonstrates other psychotic features
including disorganization of thoughts, hallucinating
associations [, . . . and] delusional ideas. . . [such as] that he has
been ordained as a minister of his own religion and that God
spoke to him and said that he was the minister of Shinto Islam.
The petitioner added that he had been unable to find any reference to Shinto Islam
on the Internet. When asked for an example of appellant’s thought-disorder issues, he said
that, in appellant’s writings, “we will see a lot of tangential references to things that seem
unrelated to the topic of the writing” such as “talking about a bear watching him while he
was fishing.”
The petitioner explained that, although no Jarvis order was then in effect, appellant
was still taking a non-therapeutic dose of Seroquel, a neuroleptic medication, because it
helps him sleep. The petitioner’s view was that “it would be riskier for [appellant] to stop
taking the Seroquel at this time than it would be for him to continue taking it. It would be
potentially detrimental to his mental health if I were to stop the Seroquel abruptly.” The
petitioner said that appellant had not been willing to talk about taking other medications
during their last three visits.
When asked if appellant could “advance from a psychiatric point of view” in his
treatment without neuroleptic medication, the petitioner answered, “His psychotic
condition would not improve at all . . . .” The petitioner testified that, although appellant
believes he should not take neuroleptic medications “because of the head injury that he
incurred many years ago,” long-term head injuries were not a contraindication of
antipsychotic medications; moreover, a recent MRI scan of appellant’s brain revealed no
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structural abnormalities. When asked if appellant’s refusal “to take other neuroleptic
medications interfere[d] with his treatment at this time,” the petitioner answered, “Yes.”
The petitioner also said he was not aware of any religious objections appellant had to taking
the medications.
When asked if he believed that appellant had the capacity to refuse to try other
medications, the petitioner said appellant did not have the capacity, “because the
medications potentially would have immense benefits to his mental health and could help
him to have a better clinical outcome, including being able to obtain a provisional discharge
much sooner.” When asked for the basis of his belief that appellant lacked capacity, the
petitioner replied, “[f]undamentally [appellant] does not understand that he has mental
illness at all and when one doesn’t understand that [he is] sick, [he does] not want to accept
treatment for a condition that [he doesn’t] believe [he has].”
The Psychiatrist’s Testimony
The psychiatrist testified that: (1) he was the court-appointed examiner; (2) because
appellant believed he was biased, appellant had been unwilling to meet with him prior to
the hearing; (3) he had evaluated appellant in 2009; diagnosed schizoaffective disorder,
bipolar type; reviewed appellant’s records; and seen a pattern in 2001, 2008, and 2012. He
described the pattern:
[Appellant’s] symptoms would worsen to the point where he
would get committed and have imposed treatment and then
improve. And unfortunately he would improve enough that he
then became someone who was thought to have the capacity to
say yes or no to medications . . . . [U]sually that gave him the
opportunity to start to ween [himself off of] his medications
and then the process would start again.
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The psychiatrist further explained, “Although [appellant] has times when he
infrequently has believed he has had a mental illness, he generally does not believe that
and then it’s during those times that he chooses to decrease the medication slightly and
that’s when the kind of slippery slope begins.” When asked for his opinion on whether
antipsychotic medications were medically indicated and were the least restrictive means of
treating appellant’s mental illness, he answered, “My opinion is that it would be indicated
and appropriate and that at this point imposed treatment seems to be the least restrictive
way to bring about treatment.”
Appellant’s Testimony
Appellant testified that, after the last Jarvis order expired in April 2014, he stayed
on Seroquel because it helped him sleep and that “at this point in time today I don’t feel
I’m at a point where I have a mental illness.” Appellant’s counsel then asked him about
the request for a Jarvis order.
Counsel: Why do you think it’s not a proper request?
Appellant: Because of the situational factor of my TBI
[traumatic brain injury], which is a unique brain
damage. And the effects of Seroquel over the
years and years and years. And going off
Seroquel is the sleep effect I have on Seroquel
and my compliance on taking that medication of
being, having numerous providers, mental health
providers that prescribed dosages at different
levels and different dosages which [I] have gone
through. And more or less the trouble I had in
the DOC [Department of Corrections] and why I
had so many Jarvises in Washington County
Court.
Counsel: So are you not willing to take a higher dosage of
Seroquel?
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Appellant: I would rather leave it like it is because I still get
up a little bit of pain but I still work through the
day. I would like a cap on it . . . and that is why
I’m seeking review in the Appellate Court
because it is coming up to 19 years of straight
confinement for me.
Counsel: Are you not willing to try other neuroleptic
medications?
Appellant: I have gone through numerous other medications
....
....
Counsel: Are you willing to try those [other] medications?
Appellant: Not at this time.
....
Counsel: Are you opposing the use of any other
neuroleptic medications because of your
religion?
Appellant: I brought this up before, maybe in a Jarvis or
Court and some of my writings that low dosages
of Seroquel or of other dosages of different
meds, I am not sure, and I have gone through
them and had side effects, but with Seroquel I
have no objection to a low dosage with my
religion, but a high dosage of Seroquel or others,
I do feel that it is against my religion.
Appellant’s counsel questioned him again on redirect examination.
Counsel: You indicated that you don’t believe that you
suffer from mental illness at this time, is that
what you said?
Appellant: That’s correct.
Counsel: Do you think you exhibited some symptoms of
mental illness in the past?
Appellant: Describing the TBI and effects of the
neuroleptics it would have seemed to.
Counsel: And how do you deal with those symptoms?
Appellant: I wrote to the Court . . . and I gave them a list of
witnesses.
Counsel: Okay. I don’t mean legally, I mean for yourself,
how did you deal with your own symptoms of
mental illness?
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Appellant: My own symptoms of mental illness is I . . . more
or less don’t believe I have any.
Counsel: Ever?
Appellant: No. I traded it in, I just don’t feel I have anything
going on except for supporting my peers because
[of] my ability to address myself in court and
redress my issues. And my past behavior was
anger, expressing my anger inappropriately.[2]
But I believe I have had . . . close to 10,000
therapy groups and at least 500 anger
management groups to where I can express my
anger appropriately now. And as long as I can
do that verbally in a nonaggressive manner, there
is no mental illness really in my record except for
violence. And then it seems like it was precluded
to a mental illness by this report, this report, this
report, and I tried to address them on appeals and
I continue to do that.
The district court made findings based on this and other testimony, concluded that
“the issuance of this Jarvis [o]rder is proper in light of the evidence,” and granted the
petition for a Jarvis order. Appellant challenges the granting of the petition, arguing that
the district court’s findings are clearly erroneous.
DECISION
“We review the record in the light most favorable to the district court’s decision . . .
[and w]e will affirm the district court’s findings unless they are clearly erroneous.” In re
Civil Commitment of Raboin, 704 N.W.2d 767, 769 (Minn. App. 2005) (citation omitted).
“Where the findings of fact rest almost entirely on expert testimony, the [district] court’s
2
As previously stated, appellant was convicted of the second-degree murder of his wife
and the first-degree assault of his ex-fiancée. Both crimes were committed by stabbing the
victims, and appellant regards the stabbing as an inappropriate expression of anger.
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evaluation of credibility is of particular significance.” In re Knops, 536 N.W.2d 616, 620
(Minn. 1995).
Patients subject to civil commitment are presumed to have the
capacity to make decisions regarding the administration of
neuroleptic medication. If a patient refuses such treatment and
the district court finds that the patient lacks the capacity to
make that decision, the district court may authorize the treating
facility to administer neuroleptic medication.
Raboin, 704 N.W.2d at 769 (citing Minn. Stat. § 253B.092, subds. 5(a), 8(e) ([2014])).
The district court found that the two psychiatrists agreed that “an order imposing
treatment with neuroleptic medications is medically indicated and the least restrictive way
to treat [appellant] given his mental illness.” The testimony quoted above supports this
finding.
The district court also found that the petitioner
opines that given [appellant’s] diagnosis; history of
improvement when taking other neuroleptic medications at
therapeutic doses; his history of decompensation when he is
not taking neuroleptic medications in that manner, and his
current active psychotic symptoms, [appellant] lacks the
capacity to make well-reasoned decisions regarding the
administration of neuroleptic medications to treat his mental
illness, other than as to the small amount of Seroquel he is
willing to take.
The petitioner’s testimony supports this finding, and appellant’s own testimony supports
the petitioner’s testimony: appellant testified that he would not take any neuroleptic
medication except for the small dose of Seroquel.
The district court found that the petitioner “testified that [appellant] continues to
believe in a religion he calls ‘Shinto Islam,’ which has no inherent connection historically
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or by its belief system.” Again, the petitioner’s testimony and appellant’s testimony
support this finding. The district court did find that “According to [the petitioner,
appellant] is not refusing to take neuroleptic medications due to religious beliefs” while
appellant testified that taking neuroleptic medications other than the small dose of Seroquel
would be “against [his] religion.” But appellant’s discussion of his religion in his brief
does not argue that the religion forbids the use of chemical substances. He says only that
he is
a holy man of the religion ‘Shinto Islam’ and my religion is
very important and does not allow abuse of chemical
substances and any threats would be: “a warning from a man
who chooses to believe in Allah” and though my
communication skills are complex; other holy men would be
in the best position to evaluate my actions and not psychiatry
or psychology doctrines.
Appellant says that his religion forbids only the abuse of chemical substances, not their
use. In view of the inconsistencies in appellant’s arguments, the finding that his religious
beliefs are not the basis for his objection to neuroleptic medication is not clearly erroneous.
The district court’s findings are not clearly erroneous and provide ample support for
its conclusions and the issuing of the Jarvis order.
Affirmed.
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