AUGUSTA, Maine — A Kennebec County Superior Court ruling this week authorizes state officials to involuntarily medicate a Gardiner man charged with murdering his father in May 2014 to see whether he can become competent to stand trial.
Leroy Smith III, 26, has been in state custody, either at Riverview Psychiatric Center or the Kennebec County Jail, since his arrest on May 6, 2014. He is charged with killing 56-year-old Leroy Smith II at their apartment on Cannard Street in Gardiner. He then allegedly dismembered the body and placed the remains in a wooded area along a dirt road in Richmond.
In January 2015, Justice Donald Marden found Smith not competent to stand trial after a forensic expert testified Smith likely suffers from schizophrenia, paranoid schizophrenia or a delusional disorder. His attorney, Pam Ames, previously said he has been diagnosed with a delusional disorder, which she said is less likely to respond to the antipsychotic drugs requested by the state.
Smith has refused psychiatric medication prescribed to treat the delusions and maintains he does not have a mental illness, Riverview staff told Marden at a Dec. 2, 2015, hearing. But they said Smith agreed to take the antipsychotic Seroquel for a brief period in April 2014 in order to help him sleep. While Ames said Smith stopped taking the medication because of side effects, practitioners reported that the drug led to “a lack of evident psychosis” and “appeared to lead to better organization of his thoughts,” Marden wrote in his order.
During the Dec. 2 hearing, a psychiatric nurse practitioner suggested the court order forced medication for six months, though she noted the appropriate medication could be determined earlier. She said Smith may continue to have delusions but that the medication should help him control and cope with the delusions.
But Smith’s attorneys, Ames and Scott Hess, argued that the side effects of antipsychotic medications could impede his ability to assist in his defense.
Ames said in December that in addition to “significant protection” offered by the U.S. Constitution against the administration of unwanted antipsychotic drugs and a 2003 Supreme Court decision confirming those protections, the drug’s side effects could also interfere with his ability to assist his attorney with his defense.
Hess argued that there is not enough evidence of a “substantial likelihood” — language from a new statute that allows the state to force individuals to take medication in certain instances — that antipsychotics would make Smith competent to stand trial or that the side effects of those medications would not interfere with his ability to assist his attorneys with his defense.
“They’re not sure these medications are going to work,” Hess said in closing arguments. “They think they will, but they have to try a number of medications” to see what works.
“If they dope him up so completely so that he can’t think at all and he’s just a zombie, it may help his delusions but it’s not going to help his defense team in preparing him for trial,” Ames told the Bangor Daily News.
In his ruling, which was issued without fanfare Tuesday, Marden wrote that the protocol suggested by the Riverview team is “medically appropriate” and likely to render the defendant competent to proceed.”
Marden also wrote that forcing Smith to take medications under the supervision of Riverview staff is “unlikely to provide side effects that would significantly interfere with the defendant’s ability to assist … in conducting the defendant’s defense.”
The order authorizes forced medication for six months.
Marden ordered that the Riverview treatment team may administer antipsychotic medication “as deemed appropriate” with constant monitoring and may administer medication as needed to treat potential side effects.
Furthermore, if Smith declines to take the medication orally, the state may administer it by injection. Weekly or, if necessary, more frequent notes on Smith’s progress will be provided to the court and attorneys, and state forensic staff will report on the treatment every 30 days.
The court will review Smith’s treatment in April 2016, according to the order.
Ames said Friday afternoon that she was not surprised by Marden’s ruling, and said Smith’s case is “a test case for the new statute,” which went into effect on July 1, 2015.
She said she and Hess agree that an appeal of the ruling is not in Smith’s best interest because it would further delay a decision on competency.
“One way or another, if the involuntary medication does not work within a reasonable amount of time — if there isn’t any improvement or reasonable need to continue with involuntary medication — the court may have to make a decision whether further involuntary medication is continued or whether the charge of murder is dismissed,” Ames said.
According to Maine law, if Smith is not found competent to stand trial and is deemed unlikely to be restored to competency, the charge is dismissed, and Smith would be civilly committed to the custody of the commissioner of the Maine Department of Health and Human Services.
Assistant Attorney General Deborah Cashman, who is prosecuting the case, declined Friday to comment on the order.
“The order speaks for itself,” Timothy Feeley, a spokesman for the attorney general’s office, said in an email to the Bangor Daily News.