November 22, 2008
Hello,
You are receiving this because I believe you are interested in the Law
Project for Psychiatric Rights' (PsychRights®) mission of
mounting a strategic litigation campaign in the United States against forced
psychiatric drugging and electroshock, including the massive psychiatric
drugging of America's children and youth. If not, however, or you otherwise
want to be removed from this list, just e-mail me back to that effect.
Highlights
I would say 2008 has been another very productive year for PsychRights.
This is the third year in a row that we have won an important Alaska Supreme
Court decision and the stay pending appeal the Supreme Court granted in
another case is also extremely important. This
latter
appeal has been expedited and if we are successful in getting the Alaska
Supreme Court to order the State of Alaska to provide a non-drugging
alternative, I think it will be the most important decision in this area of
the law in 35 years. In addition, I hope we are starting to get some
traction in getting things going in other states. Since I am not licensed
to practice law in other states (and I can only do so much by myself) we
need to recruit lawyers in other states to connect up with local activists,
develop and pursue strategic litigation. I feel the most important thing we
have done this year is file
PsychRights v. Alaska, a lawsuit seeking to stop Alaska from
psychiatrically drugging children in youth over whom they have assumed
control or pay through Medicaid. If we are successful in this endeavor, it
will also be a hugely important accomplishment. Finally, as a result of a
strategy developed in Alaska submitting written expert testimony against the
drugging, we have been able to produce a generic
Forced Drugging Defense Package that people can use around the country
to present admissible evidence to judges to counter the lies told by
psychiatrists in obtaining court orders subjecting people to forced
drugging.
Appeal for Donations
I hope after reading this report you will agree PsychRights deserves your
financial support. PsychRights, is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization (i.e.,
tax deductible). I donate all my time on a pro bono basis, and
because of this PsychRights small annual budget goes a long way, and is very
effectively spent. As of this writing, PsychRights has spent $10,000 more
than it has brought in this year. Our cash reserves are still over $37,000
so we are not in any imminent financial danger, but the less we have
available, the less we can deploy towards our mission. PsychRights'
finances are completely transparent with information posted at
http://psychrights.org/about.htm.
So far this year we have 33 donors who have contributed a total of
$20,670. Last year a total of 34 people donated $19,228 and the year
before 48 people donated $29,203. In addition to the total amount, it is
very important that we have as many donors as possible because that matters
to potential foundations. PsychRights continues to make a concerted
effort to receive foundation funding and they like to see significant
financial support from the public. It is critically important that everyone
who supports PsychRights' work give something. Even people on disability
income can give $5 per month. People with reasonably good jobs could make
annual contributions of $25, and professionals $500 -- $1,000. Donations
can be sent to:
- Law Project for Psychiatric Rights
- 406 G Street, Suite 206
- Anchorage, Alaska 99501
Donations can also be made online by going to
PsychRights Home Page and clicking on
the Network for Good or PayPal buttons.There will be significant expenses associated with the
PsychRights v. Alaska lawsuit to try and stop the psychiatric
drugging of children and youth by the state and if you would like to make a
donations specifically for this purpose, you may do so and we will make sure
it is used for that purpose.
Please make a donation to PsychRights if you have not done so already this
year.
Law Project for Psychiatric Rights v. State of Alaska, et al.
As previously reported, because of the unfolding national tragedy
represented by the massive over drugging of children and youth with
psychiatric drugs, about two years ago, PsychRights declared the situation
an emergency and made address the horror a priority. About a year ago, we
learned about the
CriticalThinkRx Curriculum, David Cohen, PhD, principle investigator,
and we knew from that that it would be a tremendous resource when it came
out. The
CriticalThinkRx Curriculum was developed under a grant from the
Attorneys General Consumer and Prescriber Grant Program through the
multi-state settlement of consumer fraud claims regarding the marketing of
the prescription drug Neurontin in order to give guidance to people making
decisions regarding authorizing the administration of psychotropic drugs to
children and youth. The
CriticalThinkRx
Curriculum was released in mid-June 2008, and after a final attempt to
get the State of Alaska to mend its ways without being sued, PsychRights
drafted the
Complaint (2 Megabytes), drawing 90+% of the lawsuit's scientific
information from the
CriticalThinkRx Curriculum. It is hard to over-emphasize the value of
the CriticalThinkRx
Curriculum.In late September, PsychRights filed the lawsuit as
Law
Project for Psychiatric Rights v. State of Alaska, et al., asking
the court to rule children and youth have their own right not to be
improperly drugged and to issue an order prohibiting (enjoining) the State
of Alaska from authorizing or paying for Alaskan children and youth to be
administered psychotropic drugs unless and until:
(i) evidence-based psychosocial interventions have been exhausted,
(ii) rationally anticipated benefits of psychotropic drug treatment
outweigh the risks,
(iii) the person or entity authorizing administration of the drug(s)
is fully informed, and
(iv) close monitoring of, and appropriate means of responding to,
treatment emergent effects are in place,
and that all children and youth currently receiving such
drugs be evaluated and brought into compliance with the above.
Other items that might be of interest are:
A 14 day trial is
scheduled to begin February 1, 2010, with a lot of deadlines in between,
but I would like to try and obtain what is known as a preliminary
injunction as soon as I can. I need to be able to grab a chunk of time to
put that together, though. I am also always willing to try and negotiate
an acceptable settlement, but that has been a non-starter so far. It is
anticipated this lawsuit will take a large percentage of my time over the
next 15 months and I am trying to clear my schedule so I can do that. It
would be marvelous if some foundation(s) or wealthy individual(s) took an
interest in this critically important effort and provided enough funding so
PsychRights could hire a staff attorney to work on this, but failing that I
will do the best that I can.In my view,
PsychRights v. Alaska, with its potential groundbreaking precedent
is the most important effort PsychRights has undertaken to date.
Bigley v. Alaska Psychiatric Institute (API) S-13116
Bigley v. Alaska Psychiatric Institute (API), is potentially pretty
close behind
PsychRights v. Alaska in importance because it seeks a decision by
the Alaska Supreme Court ordering the state of Alaska to provide a less
intrusive alternative to the drugging.
Mr. Bigley's
history is pretty tragic in that the psychiatric system has destroyed
his life through almost 30 years of forced drugging and 80
involuntary commitments. The
New York Times did a story on him in March and for those who are
interested, Mr. Bigley is the person for whom I subpoenaed the
Zyprexa Papers
in December of 2006. As I assumed at the time, but couldn't testify to
when I was in front of Judge Weinstein in Brooklyn because I had been
blocked from getting his records, Mr. Bigley had been drugged with Zyprexa
under a forced drugging court order. He was also subsequently "taken down"
with Zyprexa and prescribed Zyprexa again within the last few months (but
refused to take it).
At the
May, 2008 trial, PsychRights put on what it believes is an absolutely
compelling case that the forced drugging is doing great harm to Mr. Bigley
with no benefit. The hospital's response was basically, "but that is what
we do" (standard of care) and
the judge ordered the forced drugging anyway. We had asked for a stay
pending appeal, though, and the trial court gave us 48 hours to get one from
the Alaska Supreme Court, which we essentially did (API begged for more
time, which we agreed to so long as Mr. Bigley was not drugged in the
meantime). The Alaska Supreme Court
granted the stay because we had shown Mr. Bigley faced the danger of
irreparable harm from even a single dose of Risperdal Consta. API
moved for reconsideration, complaining, among other things, that the
stay "effectively precludes API from administering medication for Mr. Bigley
during this, or any future, commitment periods." The Alaska Supreme Court
denied reconsideration of the stay but, presumably reacting to API's
complaint about not being able to drug Mr. Bigley during the pendency of the
appeal,
ordered the parties to say whether or not the appeal should be expedited.
API didn't respond, but
PsychRights said the appeal should be expedited, not because of the
stay, but because Mr. Bigley was going to be cycled through jail repeatedly
without the requested less intrusive alternative because API was going to
dump him into the streets without any supports if it couldn't drug him. The
court ordered the appeal expedited, briefing is completed, and oral
argument set for December 16, 2008.
In the meantime exactly what PsychRights predicted has happened with API
refusing to help Mr. Bigley if it can't drug him, resulting in multiple
arrests for being disruptive in the community with the charges then being
dismissed, and multiple admissions to API with API immediately discharging
him. However, the community became upset about this and API was pressured
to do something about it and its reaction was to try and drug Mr. Bigley in
spite of the stay (still refusing to provide non-drug supports). The legal
fight over that has been going on over that for the last month in
Case
No. 3AN 08-1252PR. There are a number of issues in
Bigley v. API, and it is entirely possible the Alaska Supreme Court
won't decide in that case whether Mr. Bigley is entitled to a less intrusive
alternative. In such event,
3AN
08-1252PR is a vehicle for trying to obtain such a decision and relief
for Mr. Bigley from the Alaska Supreme Court if it is not obtained at the
trial court level.
Mind Freedom Shield/Forced Drugging Defense Package
PsychRights helped developed and has always been a supporter of the
MindFreedom Shield Program.
The MindFreedom Shield Program
is an organized mutual aid pact whereby anyone who has signed up agrees to
do something in support of someone else who has signed up and is being faced
with forced psychiatric interventions such as involuntary commitment, forced
drugging or electroshock. People call the hospital, call the governor, may
mount a protest march, those kinds of things. PsychRights, of course, is
about mounting legal challenges and as a result of the written testimony
about the neuroleptics developed over the last year, was able to assemble a
Forced Drugging Defense Package (4.5 Megabytes) to be incorporated into
the MindFreedom Shield Program.
The
Forced Drugging Defense Package consists of a set of generic legal
pleadings built around the
Affidavit
of Robert Whitaker and
Dr. Grace E. Jackson's written testimony. This was the core testimony
relied upon by the Alaska Supreme Court in issuing the
stay pending appeal in
Bigley v. API. A key piece of a
Forced Drugging Defense Package is that it includes this written
testimony as "admissible evidence" to be filed in other cases. In order to
use it in court as "admissible evidence," people must obtain certified
copies from MindFreedom. Only those who have a present need for this
formal written testimony should ask for it and MindFreedom is asking for at
least a small donation for those who ask for it. A non-certified copy of
the written testimony is included in the
Forced Drugging Defense Package and there is a
Microsoft Word version of the Forced Drugging Legal Pleadings, so that
people's attorneys can easily adapt them for local use (if they bother).
For more information, go to
http://www.mindfreedom.org/shield
The idea is this set of admissible evidence can "level the playing
field," a bit to counter when the staff psychiatrists come in to court and
don't tell the judges the truth about the drugs and the viability of
alternate treatment modalities. Usually people facing these court hearings
have no opportunity to present the truth because the lawyers paid to defend
them don't, and this
Forced Drugging Defense Package is designed to provide a way to present
the truth to the court. Without having a real adversary proceeding where
the person facing court ordered drugging has a meaningful opportunity to
present their side, the court proceedings are a sham.
Law Review Article
I published a law review article that goes through the sham nature of the
legal process chapter and verse in
Involuntary Commitment and Forced Psychiatric Drugging in the Trial Courts:
Rights Violations as a Matter of Course, 25 Alaska L. Rev. 51
(2008). The abstract of this article states:
A commonly-held belief is that locking up and forcibly drugging
people diagnosed with mental illness is in their best interests as
well as society’s as a whole. The truth is far different. Rather
than protecting the public from harm, public safety is decreased.
Rather than helping psychiatric respondents, many are greatly
harmed. The evidence on this is clear. Constitutional, statutory,
and judge-made law, if followed, would protect psychiatric
respondents from being erroneously deprived of their freedom and
right to decline psychiatric drugs. However, lawyers representing
psychiatric respondents, and judges hearing these cases uncritically
reflect society’s beliefs and do not engage in legitimate legal
processes when conducting involuntary commitment and forced drugging
proceedings. By abandoning their core principle of zealous advocacy,
lawyers representing psychiatric respondents interpose little, if
any, defense and are not discovering and presenting to judges the
evidence of the harm to their clients. By abandoning their core
principle of being faithful to the law, judges have become
instruments of oppression, rather than protectors of the rights of
the downtrodden. While this Article focuses on Alaska, similar
processes may be found in other United States’ jurisdictions, with
only the details differing.
I tried to weave the science (or lack of it) behind psychiatric drugs and
the perspective of people who are subjected to involuntary commitment and
forced drugging into the legal context. The article identifies many places
where people's rights are violated as a matter of course and these issues
can be viewed as a list of appeal points that PsychRights expects to pursue
if not corrected. This article is an example of the type of analysis that
should be done in other states to mount similar efforts there.
Wayne B
One of the issues identified in the
Law Review Article was the way the Superior Court has ignored the
requirement of a transcript when these cases are referred to masters, which
they are automatically in Anchorage. The masters only have authority to
conduct the hearings and make recommendations to the Superior Court judge
assigned to the case. As things have developed in over 25 years of the
hearings being conducted in this way, the proceedings are a legal travesty
with the masters virtually always just going along with the hospital and the
judges approving the recommendations on a rubber stamp basis. Our position
was the Superior Court can not fulfill its obligation to review the evidence
and make a legitimate decision whether to accept the masters'
recommendations without a transcript. In
Wayne B, decided at the end of August, the Alaska Supreme Court
agreed, although it said the Superior Court judges could listen to the
recording instead of having a transcript prepared. Professor Michael Perlin
described the
Wayne B decision as being even more important than the two other
Alaska Supreme Court cases PsychRights has won in the last three years,
Myers and
Wetherhorn, because it held that proper procedures must be
followed in these types of cases.
W.S.B
The case of
W.S.B., is also currently before the Alaska Supreme
Court, There, the master closed the court file to the public even
though W.S.B., elected to have the hearing open, and the Superior
Court went along. This was another issue raised in the
Law Review Article.
Under Alaska Law, the respondent has the right "to have the
hearing open or closed to the public as the respondent elects," but
as far as PsychRights knows, respondents were never asked this
question until PsychRights began representing them. In my view
having these hearings hidden from public view behind the locked
doors of the hospital has contributed greatly to the kangaroo court
nature of the proceedings and having them open to the public when
the respondent so desires is extremely important. The idea that the
hearing can be open to the public, but the court file closed seems
outrageous and it is hoped the Alaska Supreme Court will agree. The
case has been submitted and we might see a decision within six
months.
E.C.
While the state's psychiatric drugging of children and youth is the
most heartbreaking thing going on, at the other end of the life
cycle, the public guardian is doing the same thing to wards under
its control. E.C., is a Vietnam veteran who has been taken away
from his loving wife and drugged against his will because she does
not believe in psychiatrically drugging him, instead wanting to
continue the holistic and oriental approaches that have been helpful
to him. As soon as PsychRights can muster the resources, it
intends to file a challenge on E.C.'s behalf to get him back to his
wife and allowed to decline the drugs. This is potentially an
important strategic case because of the way people are being drugged
when their guardians improvidently consent. It deserves more
attention than PsychRights has been able to devote to it thus far
and it is not unlikely E.C. will have ultimately been killed by his
guardian through its administration of these drugs before
PsychRights can get him relief.
PsychRights' State Coordinator System
>From its inception, PsychRights' mission has been national in
scope. In order to work outside of Alaska it needs to mount similar
campaigns to the types of cases in Alaska described above and
previously undertaken. Since the only state in which I am licensed
to practice law is Alaska, and especially because there is only so
much one person can do, PsychRights needs to assemble (organize)
resources in other states to mount the strategic challenges to
forced drugging and electroshock in them. Lawyers must, of course,
be recruited and, in addition to that, there needs to be
knowledgeable local people, presumably activists, who can help
develop the strategy, help recruit lawyers and expert witnesses, and
find appropriate cases. There are a number of possibilities for
recruiting lawyers, such as the Protection & Advocacy (P&A)
agencies, local chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union,
etc., and getting lawyers to devote pro bono time in the
effort. In all cases, it is felt that a memo describing the
situation, including legal analysis, in a way that makes lawyers
believe it is a worthwhile effort is necessary.
If you want to help in your state, please e-mail me back
New York
George Badillo recently agreed to be PsychRights' New
York Coordinator. George is a well-known New York psychiatric
survivor/activist. What might not be well-known is that he
refused to promote the psychiatric drugging of children as
ordered to by his supervisor and lost his job as a result.
Ann L. MindFreedom Shield Alert/Attorney Recruitment.
Ann L. has a MindFreedom Shield and
activated an alert in August when faced with an outpatient
commitment continuation effort. This became the occasion for
PsychRights to
launch a pro bono recruitment effort in New York, including
isssuing a
Preliminary Memo about outpatient commitment in New York.
Aaron Frishberg, agreed to represent Ann L. on a pro bono
basis, but it can't be said that was a result of the
Preliminary Memo because Aaron was already on board
with the general effort and does as much pro bono work as
he can in this area. The Ann L case is ongoing with a jury
trial coming up early next year and I'm sure Ann L will
appreciate your support when it comes up. PsychRights needs to
follow-up on the pro bono attorney recruitment effort in
New York.
| Esmin Green. Most of you
probably know about Esmin Green's horrific death from a
blood clot in her leg while waiting in the Psychiatric
Emergency Room of King County hospital for over 24
hours. When we saw that report we wondered whether
psychiatric drugs might be implicated in her death and
we found that, in fact, they were probably the cause.
PsychRights issued a
News Release about this and
wrote to the Chief Medical Examiner about it. The
Medical Examiner refused to even look into it, however,
and PsychRights was not in a position to follow-up any
more. However, there is a group of activists in New
York, calling themselves, "we the people," who have
continued to advocate for reforms around the Esmin Green
tragedy.
|
 |
California
PsychRights has identified at least a dozen potential activists in
California who are interested in PsychRights' work, but doesn't yet
have a state coordinator. There is also someone at a P&A agency
willing to try and help get some support there and I just realized I
dropped the ball on following up on that. Interest has also been
expressed in forming a PsychRights California non-profit, but that
hasn't yet moved forward.
Massachusetts
PsychRights worked for years with the Freedom Center in Northampton,
Massachusetts, including issuing a
memo in 2004 about forced drugging in Massachusetts, called
Rogers Orders, and another one about
Potential Strategies in 2007, aimed at suggesting approaches for
the lawyers assigned to these cases in Massachusetts, who are hired
by the
Massachusetts Mental Health Litigation Unit (MHLU). The
MHLU, led by Stan Goldman, has the best training of which I know
and Mr. Goldman is very earnest about getting people good
representation. Mr. Goldman reports MHLU's attorneys win 20-30% of
their cases, which is way more than in other states I think.
However, there are a number of structural problems with getting good
representation and MHLU can not develop a strategic litigation
effort since its mandate is only to provide individual
representation. The Freedom Center has had changes in participants
and seem to have moved away from this type of advocacy. Aby Adams
used to be at the Freedom Center and PsychRights' Massachusetts
state coordinator, but has moved on. As a result, PsychRights is
looking for a new Massachusetts State Coordinator.
Virginia
PsychRights is also in contact with a number of activists in
Virginia and may be able to announce a Virginia State Coordinator in
the near future. In 2007 PsychRights was approached by local
activists about the Mental Health Commission which was wired to
recommend some draconian legislation and wrote a
Memo about them, including their unconstitutionality.
Daniel Hazen - Northeast Coordinator
Finally, last, but certainly not least, PsychRights contracted with
Daniel Hazen, a psychiatric survivor, on a very part time basis to
provide services as its Northeast Coordinator. In addition to his
part-time contract as PsychRights' Northeast Coordinator, Daniel is
active working as a human rights activist, advocate, organizer,
nationally and internationally. He is also active on the Board of
Directors of the U.S. Human Rights Network, and the Center for the
Human Rights of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry, Inc. As it has
turned out so far, Daniel has mainly served as PsychRights' emissary
to various meetings and conferences and by all reports has done so
very well.
James B. (Jim) Gottstein, Esq.
President/CEO
Law Project for Psychiatric Rights
406 G Street, Suite 206
Anchorage, Alaska 99501
USA
Phone: (907) 274-7686) Fax: (907) 274-9493
jim.gottstein[[at]]psychrights.org
http://psychrights.org/
PsychRights®
Law
Project for
Psychiatric Rights
The Law Project for Psychiatric Rights is a
public interest law firm devoted to the defense of people facing the
horrors of forced psychiatric drugging. We are further dedicated to
exposing the truth about these drugs and the courts being misled into
ordering people to be drugged and subjected to other brain and body
damaging interventions against their will. Extensive information about
this is available on our web site,
http://psychrights.org/. Please donate generously. Our work is
fueled with your IRS 501(c) tax deductible donations. Thank you for
your ongoing help and support.