Walton v. Norris, 94-2659
| Decision Date | 21 June 1995 |
| Docket Number | No. 94-2659,94-2659 |
| Parties | Timothy WALTON, Plaintiff/Appellant, v. Larry NORRIS, Interim Director, Arkansas Department of Correction; Evans, Warden, Maximum Security Unit, Arkansas Department of Correction; R.D. Reed, Cummins Unit, Arkansas Department of Correction, Defendants, Walter Oglesby, Doctor, Arkansas Department of Correction, Defendant/Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit |
Gerald Allen Coleman, West Memphis, AR, for appellant.
Sarah Slade, Asst. Atty. Gen., Little Rock, AR, for appellees.
Before RICHARD S. ARNOLD, Chief Judge, JOHN R. GIBSON, Senior Circuit Judge, and WOLLMAN, Circuit Judge.
Timothy Walton, an Arkansas prisoner, asserts in this case brought under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 that his due-process rights were violated when he was required to appear at an administrative hearing regarding forced medication without a drug-free period, and when Dr. Walter Oglesby prescribed forced psychotropic medication. The Magistrate Judge, 1 following an evidentiary hearing, recommended that the case be dismissed. The District Court, 2 adopting the Magistrate Judge's findings and recommendations, entered judgment against Walton. 3 We affirm.
Dr. Oglesby initially prescribed psychotropic drugs for Walton in 1984 after Walton was diagnosed as delusional. Over the next several years, Dr. Oglesby's diagnoses of Mr. Walton, at various times, included very delusional, paranoid schizophrenic, and psychotic. It appears that the drugs prescribed by Dr. Oglesby controlled these conditions.
Walton often asked to be taken off of his medication, and Dr. Oglesby would oblige by either reducing the dosage or discontinuing the medication. Each time, Walton would eventually become psychotic or delusional. Examples of his behavior include fighting with officers, claiming the television was telling other inmates to kill him, and claiming that people were spraying chemicals on him and his body was dissolving.
On April 4, 1993, Walton refused his medication. At that time, 4 if an inmate objected to taking medication prescribed by a treating psychiatrist, and the psychiatrist believed that the inmate suffered from a mental disorder and was gravely disabled or likely to harm himself, others, or property, then the medication could be administered involuntarily. The inmate, however, was entitled to a hearing before the Mental Health Review Committee. Arkansas Department of Correction Policy No. 275. In this case, the committee unanimously found that Walton suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, that he had become violent when taken off of his medication in the past, and that mandatory injections were needed to prevent him from becoming psychotic again.
"The Due Process...
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