FORT SMITH -- A federal judge has denied a government request to forcibly medicate a 74-year-old man to restore him to mental competence so he can stand trial on a charge of possessing firearms.
U.S. District Judge P.K. Holmes III accepted a report issued last month by U.S. Magistrate Judge James Marschewski that said involuntary medication of James Curtis was inappropriate because of evidence that his mental incompetence was caused by a brain injury from a fall and not from a mental disease or defect. He ruled that medication would not restore Curtis to competence.
Adopting Marschewski's findings, Holmes wrote, "there is not a substantial probability that in the foreseeable future defendant will attain the capacity to permit the instant proceedings to go forward."
Holmes, following a recommendation by Marschewski, ordered Curtis to undergo a psychiatric examination in a federal facility for 45 days to determine whether he suffers from a mental disease or defect and whether his release would pose a risk of injury or serious property damage.
Curtis refused treatment at a federal medical center in North Carolina after Holmes ordered he be given the drug risperidone to restore his mental competence so he could stand trial. The government requested that Curtis be medicated involuntarily, and Holmes granted the request. Curtis appealed the ruling, and the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered Holmes to determine whether involuntary treatment was appropriate for Curtis.
Curtis has been in federal custody for nearly three years. He was arrested Jan. 29, 2012, after a Fort Smith police officer found him asleep in his vehicle outside the U.S. attorney's office. Curtis told the officer that he was waiting to talk to an attorney in the office.
In the vehicle the officer found three handguns, a rifle, 1,700 rounds of ammunition and a machete.
Authorities discovered that Curtis had been committed to the Western State Hospital in Kentucky for nine days in April 2010 after he threatened police with a gun during a domestic dispute.
Metro on 12/16/2014