Opinion ID: 783000
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Medication and Competency

Text: 13 We review the denial of a motion for a new trial for abuse of discretion, giving great deference to the district court's judgment, and reversing only where the verdict is against the weight of the evidence and constitutes a great miscarriage of justice. Jones v. TEK Indus., 319 F.3d 355, 358 (8th Cir.2003). 14 Morin argues that the district court violated his due process rights by failing to order Burleigh County Detention Center staff to discontinue his medication on August 9, 2002, and by refusing to allow him to waive competency at trial. These contentions are without merit. In the first place, we need not reach the issue of whether Morin was entitled to waive competency because Morin's competency at trial was never challenged. Thus, he had no opportunity to waive the requirement. Indeed, as we discuss below, one of Morin's chief complaints is that he was too competent at the time of trial. 15 Morin's argument concerning his right to discontinue medication centers around the United States Supreme Court's decision in Riggins v. Nevada, 504 U.S. 127, 112 S.Ct. 1810, 118 L.Ed.2d 479 (1992), but that case and the recent decision in Sell v. United States, ___ U.S. ___, 123 S.Ct. 2174, 156 L.Ed.2d 197 (2003), deal specifically with court-ordered involuntary administration of anti-psychotic drugs. By contrast, the district court in this case declared on two occasions that Morin was free to stop taking his medication whenever he chose and denied the government's request for permission to forcibly medicate Morin. Morin's own doctors prescribed the medication. We acknowledge that the refusal by Detention Center staff members to stop providing Morin with medication, as well as their indication that they would refuse to house Morin if he stopped taking the medication, created a situation in which he might have felt pressure to continue his medication. But that does not equate to court-sanctioned involuntary administration. Riggins and Sell, which, incidentally, both outline standards for permitting court-ordered, forcible medication, simply do not apply to this case. 16 Morin also appears to suggest that the district court, and presumably the Detention Center staff, had an affirmative duty to repeatedly remind Morin of his right to refuse the medication that his own doctor prescribed. We disagree, and we find his contention that he was entitled to the district court's cooperation in producing a strategically timed, and medically unrecognized, window of clarity one week before trial so that he could appear in his natural, psychotic state on the witness stand inventive but at least borderline frivolous. The district court ruled that Morin was under no obligation to take his medication, and that ruling reached the Detention Center within seven days of Dr. Widman's request for the staff to discontinue medication. The trial was still more than three weeks away. And neither Morin nor his doctors had, at any point prior to trial, suggested that it was of constitutional importance that Morin be off his medication for four weeks. Indeed, Morin's lawyer acknowledged in his motion for a new trial that it was only after the trial concluded that he and Dr. Widman discussed the possibility that an extra week would have produced the desired window of clarity and courtroom insanity at the preferred times. It is patently absurd to suggest that the district court should somehow have predicted the interplay of medical science and trial strategy. We find no abuse of discretion and affirm the district court's denial of Morin's motion for a new trial.