Criminal Justice

When Justin was taken to the Benton County Jail on May 3rd, 2002 he was questioned, fingerprinted, and booked on the charge of second degree assault on a police officer. However, Justin did not have an attorney present when all this was done. Keep in mind that Justin was so psychotic at this time that he did not realize what he was saying or what these proceedings even meant. How do you tell a person in a delusional state his MIRANDA rights when he didn't even understand what it said or the implications of agreeing or not agreeing to these statements. He did not see the court appointed attorney, Mark Hanson, until just before the court date on May 7th at 11:00am.

During this first court appearance a motion for a Rule 20 Evaluation was agreed upon. Justin was to have a date set to be evaluated at the St. Peter Medical Facility and a bail of $50,000.00 was set. Two weeks went by and there was no word of a date being set. In the morning of May 15th I called the courthouse in Foley and asked if a date was set for the evaluation. I was told that this may take a couple of months to get the date set. We were quite concerned because Justin was becoming more mentally ill in jail. At this time we were not told what medications or what dosage of medications Justin was getting. Even though we are conservators of Justin we were being denied that information. Jim called Senator Wellstone's office that same morning and spoke with his Senior Advisor who immediately called the County Attorney's office to see what was taking so long to set a date for the Rule 20 evaluation. He was told that a date had just been set.

On May 16th Mike Simpson, a counselor at the Mental Health Center in St. Cloud saw Justin. He asked at the courthouse if an evaluation could be made by someone locally to expedite the proceeding but this was denied. I called Tim Roberts, the Court Administrator of Benton County and asked why we as conservators could not get information regarding Justin especially about the medications he was getting in jail. Justin is a Vulnerable Adult, Jim and I are conservators of our son, we had gone through the court in 1994 to establish this court order but we could not get the information we asked for in order to help him in getting the right meds and their dosages. Tim Roberts immediately took a copy to Sheriff McMahon where he said, "yes, we did have the right to information about Justin." The sheriff did agree to release this information.

On May 21st Justin was taken to "Intake", a room where, Justin states, inmates are taken when they are causing trouble or causing a disruption. Justin states that he was placed in Intake because he was so psychotic and he was left to stay there until he "stabilized". This was one time of several when he was placed in Intake.

On 5/23/02 we talked to Dawn, the attending nurse at the jail, and she told us Dr. Clifford Stiles was the doctor at the jail but he had not seen Justin. This was the first indication that this is not right. A doctor cannot be prescribing medications to a patient without seeing him according to what we were told by the DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency). How many of us have ever called for a prescription and was told by the nurse that the doctor would not issue a prescription until the person was seen by the doctor? I myself have been told on several occasions, even though I knew what the problem was, because the doctor that was in did not know me, I could not get a prescription. I had to go to the clinic, to the lab, and to see the doctor on staff before a prescription was issued. However, in this case with Justin, Dr. Clifford Stiles was prescribing meds as well as increasing and deleting medications without ever seeing Justin.

On May 28th an OMNIBUS hearing was scheduled for 11:00am. An OMNIBUS hearing establishes whether or not there was probable cause to arrest the defendant and if the defendant's rights were violated or not. When we arrived at the Benton County Courtroom at Foley they told us then that the hearing was canceled because they were waiting until the evaluation was done at St. Peter. This OMNIBUS hearing never took place.

Before the evaluation I had gathered and sent all of Justin's medical records from the hospital, his psychiatrists, both past and present, his medical records from the St. Cloud Medical Group, the Mental Health Center, the Behavioral Health Center, and Mayo Clinic to St. Peter for the doctor to review. On May 30th Justin was taken to the St. Peter Medical Facility by a deputy from the Benton County Jail. There he underwent a day of psychological testing by Dr Gratzer MD, Senior Forensic Psychiatrist then returned that same day to the Benton County Jail.

On June 10th we hired Kyle White, a criminal defense attorney from St. Paul, to represent Justin. On June 12th, as requested by Kyle White, I called Dr. Steve Vincent at the Behavioral Health Center in St. Cloud and left a message asking him to do an independent evaluation on Justin. The next day I talked to Dr. Steve Vincent, Director of the Behavioral Health Center at the St. Cloud Hospital, and asked him to do an evaluation on Justin since he had been the person who tested Justin in 1994 and had arrived at the diagnosis of Schizophrenia when Justin was 16 years old and since then had seen Justin on a monthly basis until December, 2001. Dr. Vincent told me that he did not care to do an evaluation because Justin had made it quite clear that he did not want to see Dr. Vincent anymore. I told him that was true but "keep in mind that Justin was getting so psychotic that he did not even want to talk to us at that time." Dr. Vincent said, "I don't feel I'm qualified to make an evaluation at this time but he would talk to Kyle White about someone else who might be able to."

The court date was set for June 18th at 9:00 AM for a reduction in bail so that we could get Justin out of jail then to a hospital to get Justin help. Kyle White presented a motion to the court to reduce the $50,000.00 bail so we could get him to the hospital. Kyle White presented the reasons for getting Justin out on bail to Judge Buchanan. Kyle said he had spoken to Dr. Gratzer at St. Peter and that he was told Justin would meet the requirements for the McNaghten Defense, that is Justin was at the time of the incident in a psychotic state and was not responsible for his actions. Before Kyle White could finish, the assistant county attorney, Krista Majerus, interrupted stating that there was no evidence of this and that the bail should remain at $50,000.00 because of the seriousness of the crime and the substantial injury to the officer. Judge Buchanan ordered the bail to stay at $50,000.00. After the hearing Jim and I made arrangements to gather the necessary money and a bail bonds person to get him out of jail.

As we sat in the waiting room at the Benton County Jail I went next door to the Foley Clinic to find out what meds Justin was on and the dosage. I spoke with Dr. Kevin Stiles and he said he did not know what I was talking about or whom I was talking about. I said that Dr. Clifford Stiles was prescribing the medications for Justin but he did not have that information with him when I had called prior to this. I wanted to just have a list of the medications Justin was currently given. I was told that I would have to call Dr. Clifford Stiles. When I asked again for the list of medications Dr. Kevin Stiles said "You're inappropriate!" Why was Dr. Kevin Stiles so irritated that I had asked him something that most people would ask for a relative who was being taken to a hospital for proper medical treatment? I went back to the jail to see Jim and Justin crossing the lawn to the car.

I could not believe that this was my son that I was seeing. Justin looked like someone coming out of a concentration camp. There is no other way I can describe it. Justin was 135 pounds when he went into jail and now he stood at 118 pounds. When we got home I opened the medications that were sent home with Justin from the Benton County Jail. I saw that Dr. Kevin Stiles name was on the medicine packages. If Dr. Clifford Stiles was the doctor contracted by the Benton County Sheriff and was the one that was prescribing the medication why was Dr. Kevin Stiles name on the meds when he did not even know who Justin was? I then called hospitals down in the Twin Cities area and was told they could not admit Justin because he was not a threat to himself or others. I finally got hold of Fairview Riverside Hospital where he was admitted the following day.

On 8/9/02 I spoke by phone to Sheriff McMahon and told him that I believed that the Vulnerable Adult Law was violated in this case and Justin was clearly a vulnerable adult. He stated he did not know what statutes I was quoting and had no knowledge of such a law. This is unbelievable since a large population of inmates in the jail are mentally ill and vulnerable adults. What good is a law when the people who are supposed to enforce it don't even know about it? I then told Sheriff McMahon that Dr. Clifford Stiles had medicated Justin without ever seeing him. When I told him that Justin had said Dr. Stiles had not seen him, the Sheriff said, "Who is going to believe someone who is mentally ill?" When I told him that Dr. Clifford Stiles and Dr. Kevin Stiles had told me themselves that they had not seen Justin he responded by saying I would have to talk to the doctors about this.

On 8/14/02 I went to the Foley Rexall Drug store to get a printout of Justin's meds. When I received the list of medications filled by the pharmacist Dr. Kevin Stiles name was on it but not Dr. Clifford Stiles. When I asked the clerk why Dr. Kevin Stiles name appeared on the meds when Dr. Clifford Stiles was prescribing the meds she said, "Maybe Dr. Clifford Stiles let his insurance lapse."

On Friday July 5th the county attorney, Robert Raupp, left a message on the social worker, Karen Andrews, answering machine that all charges were dropped. When she called me on July 8th she told me this and I was very upset. To think that Justin had sent 7 weeks in jail and we had spent a considerable amount of money and we had all gone through unbelievable trauma that the case was just dropped. I called Kyle White and told him and he did not believe it. He called the court and found the date was still on the court calendar. So he told us we would proceed with building the defense. On July 12th Kyle called Robert Raupp to see what was going on and he told Kyle the case was dismissed. Kyle then called the court and was informed that the case was taken off the calendar. We received a fax from Kyle White regarding the dismissal of the case.