Case Title: In re M.C.

Citation: 178 Vt. 585, 2005 VT 60, 878 A.2d 284

Docket Number: 2003-492

State: vermont

Court: Vermont Supreme Court

Date: 2005-06-01T00:00:00Z

Document:
In re M.C. (2003-492); 178 Vt. 585; 878 A.2d 284

2005 VT 60

Filed 01-Jun-2005

                                 ENTRY ORDER

                                 2005 VT 60

                      SUPREME COURT DOCKET NO. 2003-492

                             DECEMBER TERM, 2004

  In re M.C.	                       }	APPEALED FROM:
                                       }
                                       }
       	                               }	Lamoille Family Court
                                       }	
  	                               }
                                       }	DOCKET NO. F3-11-97 LeMH

                                                Trial Judge: Edward J. Cashman

             In the above-entitled cause, the Clerk will enter:

       ¶  1.     M.C. appeals the Lamoille Family Court's decision to
  renew his order of non-hospitalization (ONH).  M.C. contends that the court
  erred in renewing his court-ordered treatment program when there was
  evidence that he is capable of continuing treatment voluntarily.  We
  affirm.

       ¶  2.     M.C. is a 53-year-old man who suffers from chronic
  paranoid schizophrenia and experiences auditory hallucinations and
  delusional beliefs.  He was hospitalized on several occasions during the
  1970s, and, following his discharge on an ONH in 1981, he attempted to kill
  his brother with a shotgun.  He was then committed to the Vermont State
  Hospital, where he remained until 1987.  Since that time he has lived at a
  group home in Johnson, where he is supervised and receives anti-psychotic
  medication as his ONH requires.

        
       ¶  3.      M.C.'s ONH was initially of unlimited duration, but in 1998
  Vermont law was changed to require annual judicial review.  See 18 V.S.A. §
  7621(c) (limiting court-ordered periods of treatment to one year).  He has
  remained on an ONH since that time; some years by agreement of the parties
  and some years pursuant to a court order.  When the State filed an
  application to renew M.C.'s ONH in April 2003, however, his attorney
  asserted that renewal was unwarranted because a voluntary course of
  treatment is feasible in his case.  The family court concluded that M.C.
  remains a "patient in need of further treatment" pursuant to § 7101(16)(B),
  (FN1) and that the ONH was the least restrictive means of administering
  that treatment.  The court then renewed the ONH, and this appeal followed.

       ¶  4.     In judicial proceedings where involuntary mental health
  treatment is at issue, the State must prove its case by clear and
  convincing evidence.  In re E.T., 2004 VT 111, ¶ 12, 15 Vt. L. Wk. 382,