Related: Patrick Building Bridge Over Troubled Water
"Bridgewater hospital suit delayed; Lawyer suggests politics in play" by Michael Rezendes | Globe Staff July 01, 2014
DEDHAM — A superior court judge on Monday delayed a class action lawsuit against Bridgewater State Hospital until mid-August, reasoning that state lawmakers should be given a chance to consider a long list of reforms expected to be submitted by Governor Deval Patrick later this week.
Haven't seen them yet.
The decision, reached in Norfolk Superior Court at the request of Attorney General Martha Coakley, removed a potentially thorny political issue from her gubernatorial campaign. Pretrial testimony in the case will probably now not begin until after the primary election in September, under a schedule approved by Judge Paul D. Wilson.
Roderick MacLeish Jr., the lead attorney for patients in the class action suit, suggested in court that Coakley’s request for the delay was made for political reasons, saying, “it doesn’t pass the smell test.”
This whole state stinks.
But Wilson said political considerations were not a factor in his decision, noting instead that “we have a governor who had made a proposal to the Legislature that would address many of the problems at Bridgewater State Hospital.”
So what? Why does that preclude a lawsuit?
A spokesman for Coakley in a statement said, “Because many of the issues raised in the case are addressed by the Governor’s proposal, our office and the Governor’s office asked to pause the case through mid-August until the Governor’s reforms could be acted upon by the Legislature.”
?????
In addition, the schedule approved by Wilson appears to push pretrial testimony and the production of documents in the case into the general election campaign, when Coakley might face similar pressure to provide details about the role her office has played defending prison guards and Department of Correction officials.
Last month, Patrick unveiled an ambitious and potentially costly plan for reforms at Bridgewater, including doubling the number of clinicians, and funding a study on creating a new, high-security facility for mental health patients who have been charged with crimes and are undergoing psychiatric evaluation but are not serving criminal sentences.
Yeah, except in the class action cases it involves those committed that did not commit crimes.
The daily obfuscations and distortions drive you crazy.
Patrick’s proposal followed a series of stories in the Globe detailing the death of Joshua K. Messier, who died at Bridgewater in 2009 while in restraints, and the routine use of isolation and restraints at the prison — despite a state law that restricts the use of those tactics to life-threatening emergencies, and efforts in other states to reduce the use of the increasingly discredited practices.
Then there was LAW-BREAKING, right?
Massachusetts is one of the few states that house mental health patients charged with crimes — including those referred for psychiatric evaluations to determine whether they are competent to stand trial — in facilities run by the prison system. Most states house such patients in hospitals run by a department of mental health. As part of the class action lawsuit, MacLeish asked for a court order requiring Department of Correction Commissioner Luis S. Spencer to personally review and sign all seclusion and restraint orders at Bridgewater, as state law requires, describing the law as a measure “designed to provide critical oversight of the seclusion and restraint law.”
But attorneys for Coakley’s office said Monday that the Department of Correction has voluntarily revised its policy on the seclusion and restraint forms and that Spencer has begun to personally review and sign them, and will continue the practice.
In a March interview with the Globe, Spencer said he delegated the review of seclusion and restraint forms, insisting this was a “best practice” that complied with the law.
Looks like Massachusetts officials and authority doesn't really have to follow the law, does it?
MacLeish filed the class action lawsuit on behalf of Bridgewater patients in May, asserting that three patients never convicted of committing a crime were subject to prolonged periods of seclusion and restraints in violation of state law.
How do reforms get in the way of previous conduct?
The lawsuit said that two patients diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia — Peter Minich and Felipe Zomosa — spent more time in isolation and restraints at Bridgewater in one year than all 626 patients in the state’s Department of Mental Health facilities combined.
At least this state is controlled by Democrats and not Republicans.
The lawsuit also said that a third patient suffering from autism and schizophrenia was being held in seclusion for prolonged periods, which was causing his condition to deteriorate.
All I can think of is that poor Pelletier girl.
Since then, Bridgewater has transferred Minich and Zomosa to the Worcester Recovery Center and Hospital, a Department of Mental Health facility, although it is continuing to hold the patient diagnosed with autism and schizophrenia.
On Monday, Judge Wilson said that, although the class action suit is delayed, the court will continue to consider arguments over the use of seclusion and restraints in the case of the autistic patient and his medical care. During her campaign for the Democratic nomination, Coakley has frequently mentioned those who suffer from mental illnesses and their families — noting her own brother’s struggle with depression and his subsequent suicide.
That's different.
But her office provided the legal defense for prison guards in a civil case filed by Messier’s family and is defending Bridgewater and the Department of Correction in the class action lawsuit.
I suppose they are legally bound.
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"Suit challenges state’s civil drug-abuse commitments" by Brian MacQuarrie | Globe staff July 01, 2014
Civil rights groups filed a federal lawsuit Monday that seeks to overturn a Massachusetts statute allowing women with substance-abuse disorders to be held for 90 days without criminal charges at the women’s prison in Framingham.
The suit, filed in US District Court in Boston, challenges the constitutionality of a law, known as Section 35, that allows judges to order the civil commitment of women if they are deemed at risk of harming themselves or others.
“This complaint reflects our view and the view of several other leading civil-rights organizations that no one should go to prison for suffering from a disease,” said Matthew Segal, legal director for the Massachusetts chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, one of three groups that filed the suit in conjunction with the law firm WilmerHale.
The women are sent to Framingham if no beds are available at the Women’s Addiction Treatment Center in New Bedford, a private 90-bed facility with a broad range of treatment authorized by the Department of Public Health.
The women in Framingham, by contrast, receive no treatment for substance abuse, including services available to criminally convicted inmates, and are subjected to many of the rigors and restrictions of prison life, Segal said.
A spokeswoman for Governor Deval Patrick, who is named as a defendant, defended the administration’s efforts to improve substance-abuse treatment and curb the use of Framingham for civil commitments. The governor’s fiscal 2015 budget proposal and other efforts to address drug abuse “include additional funding to significantly increase the number of treatment beds within the Department of Public Health available for individuals” held under Section 35, said Heather Nichols, the spokeswoman.
Yeah, he's a real hero surrounded by a failed state.
Segal said the women being held should not be penalized because the state has not provided funding. “These women are not being held because they have been charged with or convicted of any crime,” reads the complaint, which was filed under the pseudonym of Jane Doe. “They are committed solely for the explicit statutory purpose of Section 35: ‘inpatient care’ of individuals at risk of ‘serious harm’ resulting from their addiction.”
Segal said approximately 540 women were held under civil commitments at Framingham between 2011 and 2013.
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At least they were safe from the likes of this guy:
"Edwin Alemany’s lawyer plans insanity defense" by Nicholas Jacques | Globe correspondent July 01, 2014
The lawyer for Edwin Alemany, the man accused of brutally murdering 24-year-old Amy Lord and attacking two other women over a 24-hour stretch of terror last summer, is planning to present an insanity defense in court.
“We’re essentially saying that we intend to use as a defense that he did not have the requisite state of mind that is necessary and that the government must prove to show criminal intent,” attorney Jeffrey A. Denner said Monday.
Prosecutors say Alemany, 29, attacked Lord when she left her Dorchester Street apartment in South Boston early on July 23, 2013. He allegedly dragged her back into the vestibule of her building, where he beat her before making her accompany him to five ATMs to withdraw money. She was found later that day stabbed to death in Stony Brook Reservation in Hyde Park.
Alemany is also charged with attacking a woman on Old Colony Avenue near Andrew Square an hour prior to allegedly kidnapping Lord, and another on Gates Street in South Boston just after midnight the following morning.
He also faces charges in a September 2012 attack that was not solved until after he was arrested in Lord’s murder.
He pleaded not guilty to the attacks in December. Utilizing the insanity defense does not mean that Alemany is admitting he was the perpetrator, Denner said. Rather, if the jury does find Alemany was the attacker, the defense would then argue that he should not be held criminally responsible because of his psychosis.
In an interview with the Globe, Denner said he is unsure how the jury will respond to the defense.
“There’s no question that insanity defenses are somewhat disfavored, but we’re always trying to explain to juries why they shouldn’t be,” he said.
Alemany has a long history of mental illness. He has been on and off medication since he was a teenager and has had several stays in mental health institutions, the Globe reported last August. A judge ruled then that Alemany was competent to stand trial.
If a jury finds Alemany not guilty by reason of insanity, he would have a hearing to determine if he is still a threat to himself or others. If found to be a threat, he would be committed to Bridgewater State Hospital.
You don't want to get sent there!
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Also see: Remy's Stormy Romance
Alemany gets cleaned out at the bottom.
