Opinion ID: 185465
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Mitigating Dangerousness

Text: 15 A pretrial detainee's liberty interest in avoiding unwanted antipsychotic medication gives way when the medication is essential to mitigate the detainee's dangerousness: Nevada certainly would have satisfied due process if the prosecution had demonstrated, and the District Court had found, that treatment with antipsychotic medication was medically appropriate and, considering less intrusive alternatives, essential for the sake of [the pretrial detainee's] own safety or the safety of others. Riggins, 504 U.S. at 135. The district court applied this standard to Weston's situation and twice found antipsychotic medication medically appropriate and essential for his safety or the safety of those around him. See Weston, 134 F. Supp. 2d at 121-32; Weston, 69 F. Supp. 2d at 107-10. 16 On appeal of the district court's first decision, a panel of this court found the record insufficient to support application of the Riggins standard. Much of the evidence focused on the government's competency-for-trial justification--which the district court did not adopt--and the limited evidence supporting the dangerousness justification indicates that in his current circumstances Weston poses no significant danger to himself or to others. Weston, 206 F.3d at 13. The panel relied on the testimony of a Public Health Service physician assigned to FCI Butner that [g]iven [Weston's] immediate containment situation, I feel confident that we can prevent him from harming himself or others under his immediate parameters of incarceration where he is in an individual room with limited access to anything that he could harm himself with or harm anyone else with, and he remains under constant observation. 2 Joint Appendix 121; Weston, 206 F.3d at 13. The panel concluded that involuntary medication was not essential for safety and instructed the district court that [i]f the government advances the medical/safety justification on remand, it will need to present additional evidence showing that either Weston's condition or his confinement situation has changed since the hearing so as to render him dangerous. Id. 17 On remand, the district court received additional evidence showing that Weston's condition had deteriorated. In view of this evidence, the court once again found that Weston posed such a danger that medicating him was warranted. We think the previous panel's decision likely precluded that finding. That panel held that Weston's situation in confinement--total seclusion and constant observation--obviated any significant danger he might pose to himself or others. There appears no basis to believe that Weston's worsening condition renders him more dangerous given his near-total incapacitation. Weston remains in seclusion under constant observation. Absent a showing that Weston's condition now exceeds the institution's ability to contain it through his present state of confinement, the prior decision appears to preclude a finding of dangerousness. See LaShawn A. v. Barry, 87 F.3d 1389, 1393, 1395 (D.C. Cir. 1996) (en banc) (law-of-the-case and lawof-the-circuit doctrines). We need not determine whether our concurring colleague's different interpretation of the previous panel's decision is correct in view of our affirmance of the district court's competency-for-trial ground of decision. See Concurring Op. of Rogers, J., at 889-90.