In re Qawi

• Decision Date: 24 July 2001
• Docket Number: No. A093094.,A093094.
• Citation: 109 Cal.Rptr.2d 523,90 Cal.App.4th 1192
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: In re Kanuri Surgury QAWI, on Habeas Corpus.

109 Cal.Rptr.2d 523

90 Cal.App.4th 1192

In re Kanuri Surgury QAWI, on Habeas Corpus.

No. A093094.

Court of Appeal, First District, Division 1.

July 24, 2001.

Review Granted November 14, 2001.

First District Appellate Project, Matthew Zwerling, Renee E. Torres, for Petitioner and Appellant.

Bill Lockyer, Attorney General, Pamela Smith-Steward, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Charlton G. Holland III, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Stephanie Wald, Supervising Deputy Attorney General, Angela Botelho, Deputy Attorney General, for Respondent.

SWAGER, Acting P.J.

We conclude that petitioner, as an adjudicated mentally disordered offender, has the right under Penal Code section 2972, subdivision (g), to refuse antipsychotic medication for his mental disorder, in the absence of a judicial determination of his incompetence to do so.¹

STATEMENT OF FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

In August of 1991, petitioner was found guilty of felony assault (Pen.Code, § 245, subd. (a)(1)), misdemeanor assault (§ 240), and two counts of misdemeanor battery (§ 242). He was granted parole in July of 1993, arrested again that same month for other offenses and parole violation, granted parole in March of 1994, and arrested for felony stalking in May of 1994.

During petitioner's incarceration in the California Medical Facility at Vacaville, beginning in July of 1995, he was evaluated for referral as a mentally disordered offender pursuant to section 2962. He was found to meet all the criteria required for placement and treatment as a mentally disordered offender, based upon a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia or paranoid personality disorder.² Treatment of petitioner as an involuntary mental health patient with antipsychotic medication commenced in July of 1995.³ Psychiatric reports consistently indicated that without medication petitioner lapsed into decompensated states in which he became hostile, assaultive and paranoid. He has engaged in several incidents of paranoid and violent behavior while incarcerated in mental health facilities.

Petitioner's mentally disordered offender commitment has been extended annually since 1995, most recently on January 16, 2001; his current commitment at Napa State Hospital terminates on February 17, 2002. He has consistently denied that he suffers from a mental disorder and declined to fully cooperate in his treatment. Although petitioner has suffered some adverse side effects from the antipsychotic medication he continues to receive, respondent, the Medical Director at Napa State Hospital, has offered the opinion that the medication is nevertheless absolutely necessary to achieve remission of petitioner's psychoses.

In the present petition for writ of habeas corpus, petitioner complains that he has been involuntarily compelled to take antipsychotic medication in violation of his statutory and due process rights. We directed respondent to show cause why petitioner is not entitled to a hearing to determine his competence to refuse to take antipsychotic medication pursuant to section 2972, subdivision (g), and Welfare and Institutions Code section 5325, et seq.⁴

DISCUSSION

Petitioner asserts that the right to refuse antipsychotic medication has been granted to him by subdivision (g) of section 2972, which specifies, in pertinent part: "Except as provided in this subdivision, the person committed shall be considered to be an involuntary mental health patient and he or she shall be entitled to those rights set forth in Article 7 (commencing with Section 5325) of Chapter 2 of Part 1 of Division 5 of the Welfare and Institutions Code."⁵ Section 5325.2 of the Welfare and Institutions Code, which is part of the Lanterman-Petris-Short (LPS) Act (§ 5000 et seq.) in article 7, in turn provides: "Any person who is subject to detention pursuant to Section 5150, 5250, 5260, or 5270.15 shall have the right to refuse treatment with antipsychotic medication subject to provisions set forth in this chapter." (Italics added.) Welfare and Institutions Code section 5332 directs that antipsychotic medication "may be administered to any person subject to detention pursuant to Section 5150, 5250, 5260, or 5270.15, if that person does not refuse that medication following disclosure of the right to refuse medication as well as information required to be given to persons pursuant to subdivision (c) of Section 5152 and subdivision (b) of Section 5213.[¶] (b) If any person subject to detention pursuant to Section 5150, 5250, 5260, or 5270.15, and for whom antipsychotic medication has been prescribed, orally refuses or gives other indication of refusal of treatment with that medication, the medication shall only be administered when treatment staff have considered and determined that treatment alternatives to involuntary medication are unlikely to meet the needs of the patient, and upon a determination of that person's incapacity to refuse the treatment, in a hearing held for that purpose." Petitioner claims that pursuant to these provisions he is "entitled to judicial proceedings at which a judicial determination of the need for, and competence to refuse, medications can be made," before he may be compelled to take antipsychotic medication against his will.

Respondent counters that the provisions in Welfare and Institutions Code sections 5325.2 and 5332, which were added to the LPS Act in 1991,⁶ are expressly limited in application to temporary commitments of gravely disabled persons detained pursuant to Welfare and Institutions Code sections 5150, 5250, 5260, or 5270.15, without a prior judicial "adjudication of their mental health status." Respondent points out that petitioner was not certified under the LPS Act: he was neither "detained under any of its referenced short term commitment statutes and procedures," nor is encompassed within the statutory definition of "gravely disabled." Therefore, maintains respondent, petitioner fails to "meet the criteria for section 5332 relief." Instead, respondent's argument concludes, as a person committed under the MDO Act, "where determinations of severe mental disorder and substantial physical dangerousness to others have already been established both civilly and criminally subject to annual judicial review under the highest standards of due process and proof," petitioner "was certified for placement and treatment under an entirely different set of statutory standards and requirements."

We must follow established rules of statutory interpretation in our determination of the rights granted to mentally disordered offenders by section 2972, subdivision (g). "`We begin with the fundamental rule that our primary task in construing a statute is to determine the Legislature's intent.' [Citation.] We must begin with the words of the statute." (Adoption of Kelsey S. (1992) 1 Cal.4th 816, 826, 4 Cal.Rptr.2d 615, 823 P.2d 1216; see also Heater v. Southwood Psychiatric Center (1996) 42 Cal.App.4th 1068, 1084, 49 Cal.Rptr.2d 880.) "Because statutory language generally provides the most reliable indicator of that intent (Hsu v. Abbara (1995) 9 Cal.4th 863, 871 [39 Cal.Rptr.2d 824, 891 P.2d 804]), we turn to the words themselves, giving them their `usual and ordinary meanings' and construing them in context. (People v. Loeun [(1997)] 17 Cal.4th [1,] 9 [69 Cal.Rptr.2d 776, 947 P.2d 1313] ).'" If there is no ambiguity in the language of the statute, `... the Legislature is presumed to have meant what it said, and the plain meaning of the statute governs.' "`(Ibid.)" (People v. Lawrence (2000) 24 Cal.4th 219, 230-231, 99 Cal. Rptr.2d 570, 6 P.3d 228.) The "`statutes or statutory sections relating to the same subject must be harmonized, both internally and with each other, to the extent possible.' (Dyna-Med, Inc. v. Fair Employment & Housing Com. (1987) 43 Cal.3d 1379, 1387 [241 Cal.Rptr. 67, 743 P.2d 1323].)" (Masonite Corp. v. Superior Court (1994) 25 Cal.App.4th 1045, 1055, 31 Cal.Rptr.2d 173.) The issue of statutory interpretation is one of law which we review de novo. (Id., at p. 1050, 31 Cal. Rptr.2d 173.)

Respondent's argument that the rights articulated in article 7 of the LPS Act do not extend to persons committed under the MDO Act, is based upon the provisions of referent Welfare and Institutions Code sections 5325.2 and 5332 in article 7 of the LPS Act, in which the right to refuse treatment with antipsychotic medication is expressly granted to "[a]ny person who is subject to detention pursuant to Section 5150, 5250, 5260, or 5270.15," which of course does not include petitioner. The flaw in respondent's reasoning is that it ignores the very clear language of section 2972, subdivision (g), which specifically affords to involuntary mental health patients in MDO Act proceedings all of the "rights set forth in Article 7," one of which is to "refuse treatment with antipsychotic medication." A person committed as a mentally disordered offender "is considered an involuntary mental health patient who is entitled to all the rights accorded to civil committees under the Lanterman-Petris-Short (LPS) Act." (People v. Superior Court (Myers) (1996) 50 Cal.App.4th 826, 832, 58 Cal. Rptr.2d 32.) Thus, section 2972, subdivision (g), treats involuntary mental health patients committed under the MDO Act as persons "subject to detention pursuant to Section 5150, 5250, 5260, or 5270.15," at least for purposes of defining the rights they retain in the proceedings. Reading the statutory schemes together and following the plain language of section 2972, subdivision (g), we conclude that the Legislature has given a person committed as a mentally disordered offender the same right to refuse antipsychotic medication as a person involuntarily detained under sections 5150, 5250, 5260, and 5270.15 of the LPS Act.

In reaching this conclusion we accept respondent's characterization of the distinction between the summary, more transitory LPS commitment, and the more expansive procedural rights to a hearing...