State v. T. W. (In re T. W.)
| Decision Date | 09 May 2018 |
| Docket Number | A160465 |
| Citation | 422 P.3d 305,291 Or.App. 679 |
| Parties | In the Matter of T. W., Alleged to be a Person with Mental Illness. STATE of Oregon, Respondent, v. T. W., Appellant. |
| Court | Oregon Court of Appeals |
Eric J. Deitrick and Multnomah Defenders, Inc., filed the brief for appellant.
Ellen F. Rosenblum, Attorney General, Paul L. Smith, Deputy Solicitor General, and Susan Yorke, Assistant Attorney General, filed the brief for respondent.
Before DeVore, Presiding Judge, and Lagesen, Judge, and DeHoog, Judge.
Appellant seeks reversal of a judgment committing him to the custody of the Mental Health Division for a period not to exceed 180 days. See ORS 426.130. In his only assignment of error, appellant contends that the trial court erred in determining that he presented a danger to himself and others. See ORS 426.005(1)(f)(A). We agree and, for the reasons set forth below, we reverse.
On review of the trial court’s judgment, "we view the evidence, as supplemented and buttressed by permissible derivative inferences, in the light most favorable to the trial court’s disposition and assess whether, when so viewed, the record was legally sufficient to permit that outcome." State v. S. R. J. , 281 Or. App. 741, 743, 386 P.3d 99 (2016) (internal quotation marks omitted).1
Appellant was 49 years old at the time of the civil commitment hearing in September 2015. His history involving mental illness began in the 1990s, when he was in his 20s; he was diagnosed with schizophrenia
and was at some point thereafter civilly committed. In 2000 or 2001, appellant experienced auditory hallucinations and believed that people were trying to harm him; he also had an encounter with the police while he was in front of his grandfather’s house. In that encounter, he pulled out a pellet gun in the presence of the police, and officers subdued him by firing at him with beanbag rounds. At some point after that incident, appellant received treatment at the Oregon State Hospital.
For a period of time, appellant received treatment in the community and did well—his medication worked for him and he experienced stability. He worked with a health care organization as a peer counselor for at least four years. He also served on the board of a disability rights organization, and he advocated for culturally competent services in Oregon’s mental health system. However, his stability changed in the few years leading up to the commitment hearing that is the subject of this case. His behavior shifted around the time that he was assigned a new counselor through the Department of Veterans' Affairs (VA) and he was prescribed a different medication that was not effective. He appeared to have relapsed—he experienced auditory hallucinations and struggled with behavioral issues, and his memory changed, causing him to believe that he was still in the 1990s. At some point after the period of stability, appellant was involved in an incident at the credit union office where he banked, resulting in him being barred from that office location.
In the fall of 2014, appellant left the Portland area; he spent some time in Seattle and then travelled to Canada with the intent of seeking "political asylum." He feared living in the United States as a gay black man with mental illness. In April 2015, after his request for asylum in Canada was denied, the Canadian authorities took him to the border, where he crossed into the State of Washington. He then spent time in Mexico and San Diego, California.
While appellant was in the San Diego area, he placed a call to Governor Brown’s constituent office and left the following voicemail:
***."
Oregon State Police Officer Schinnerer, who was on assignment with the Governor’s protection unit, was very concerned by the voicemail. According to Schinnerer, although hostile phone calls to the Governor’s office are not uncommon, appellant’s voicemail was of a different intensity than other calls. As a result, he began to investigate and attempted to locate appellant. Schinnerer contacted appellant’s mother and learned that appellant was in the San Diego area. In response to that information, Schinnerer contacted the San Diego police department, who put Schinnerer on an alert list so that he would be notified if appellant had contact with that department. Schinnerer also began contacting appellant’s mother regularly in an effort to locate appellant. Ultimately, however, Schinnerer never contacted appellant.
On September 4, 2015, 10 days before the hearing, appellant travelled by train to Portland, intending to get a copy of his birth certificate so that he could apply for an enhanced identification card, which he believed would allow him to lawfully enter and remain in Canada or Mexico. While on the train, appellant perceived two women on the train to be directing hostilities at him and one of them to have threatened to kill him. He responded by calling one of the women a "bitch." She, in turn, sought assistance from the train conductor, who asked appellant to move to the lower compartment of the train; he did. Appellant also claimed to have called the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from the train because he believed that people on the train were being hostile to him and he wanted train-side assistance in Portland.
At some point before the train arrived in Portland, the conductor called the police. Sergeant Burley, from the Portland Police Bureau’s Behavioral Health Unit, went to Union Station along with his colleague, Clinician Hackett.2 When Burley arrived, he observed that appellant, who had gotten off of the train and was waiting for a taxi, was dressed in what appeared to be a white security guard’s uniform and was wearing a gold badge on his chest. Appellant also wore a duty belt on which he carried a six- to eight-inch Maglite flashlight, handcuffs, and a pepper spray holder, but no pepper spray.3 Burley spoke with appellant, who told Burley that he was in a hurry and in town to get his birth certificate so that he could apply for an enhanced identification card in the State of Washington. Appellant also told Burley that he had been harassed by people on the train throughout his trip from California and that he had taken a video of the individuals with his cell phone, though not while they were harassing him. Appellant permitted Burley to view the video; Burley testified that it appeared to him as though the passengers in the video were unaware that they were being video recorded and that they had no interest in appellant whatsoever—they were simply sitting and reading books or newspapers.
Appellant told Burley that he was a volunteer security person for Amtrak—that he had been asked to provide security while riding the train. He also stated that he was a volunteer bounty hunter and helped out bounty hunter agencies. In that capacity, according to appellant, he followed people, gathered intelligence on them, and provided bounty hunters with information about people he perceived to have broken the law. Appellant also told Burley that, if he saw something suspicious, he would let law enforcement know something was going on. Burley asked appellant whether he would take a person into custody and take law enforcement action if he believed that the person was a criminal. Appellant did not answer that question. Hackett told Burley that she wanted to place a hold on appellant, and the group of responders created a plan to have appellant transported to the hospital; he was later admitted to the VA hospital and housed in the inpatient psychiatric unit pending his hearing.
The trial court held a commitment hearing on September 14, 2015, and appellant testified. He stated that he did not believe that he needed medication and that, when he used ear plugs, he did not hear voices. He also stated that he felt uncomfortable staying in Oregon and wanted to live somewhere other than the United States because of how he had been treated. He denied having done anything to protect himself when harassed other than to call law enforcement to have them address the situation. He explained that, although he had purchased mace, he had not used it on anyone, and, although he had a flashlight, he had not beaten anyone with it. He denied buying or owning any firearms. He further testified that he did not want to hurt himself or hurt or kill anyone else, including the Governor or other state officials.
Dr. Wilson, a psychiatry resident at the VA hospital who worked with appellant, testified that the working diagnosis for appellant was schizoaffective disorder
: manic type. Wilson did not think that appellant believed that he had a mental disorder, and noted that appellant had refused his nightly scheduled dose of medication. Wilson testified that he had tried to discuss the events leading up to appellant’s hospitalization with him, but appellant perseverated on alleged staff mistreatment, including various misdeeds that he believed the staff had committed against him, such as verbal assaults, withholding meals, and making threats—beliefs that Wilson explained were the result of paranoid delusions and were not credible. When asked whether appellant had been aggressive toward the hospital staff, Wilson said that he had appeared agitated on multiple occasions when interacting with staff, displaying increased volume and pressured speech....
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