Judge deliberates whether to forcibly medicate MitchellTestimony during a hearing to determine if Brian David Mitchell can be forcibly medicated zeroed in Wednesday on the main question before 3rd District Judith Atherton: What are the chances medication will help?
Forced medication can be ordered, according to a new federal standard, if there is "a significant likelihood" it will make Mitchell competent to stand trial for the 2002 kidnapping and sexual assault of Elizabeth Smart.
But experts disagree about whether Mitchell will improve due to drugs.
On Wednesday, an expert for the defense estimated the chances of improvement at less than 50 percent. Experts for the prosecution put the odds at about 70 percent.
At the conclusion of the two-day hearing, which ended this afternoon, Atherton took the issue under advisement.
Defense expert Jeffrey Metzner, a forensic psychiatrist from Colorado, said one problem is that Mitchell has been diagnosed with "delusional disorder," which is fairly rare - 30 people out of every 100,000 - and not widely addressed in the professional literature.
While existing case studies indicate medications can be effective, Metzner claimed the studies are flawed because of the small size of the sample populations.
Metzner, however, said that if he were treating Mitchell, he would prescribe drugs, even if the chance for success was small.
"If you don't treat Mr. Mitchell with medications, it's unlikely he'll get better," Metzner testified.
But for purposes of the court hearing, Metzner said, he could not predict a "substantial likelihood" that Mitchell could be made competent.
Prosecutors believe the best judges of Mitchell's prognosis are his own doctors at the Utah State Hospital, where he has resided for the past 25 months.
During cross-examination by prosecutor Kent Morgan, Metzner agreed that clinical experience would be important, given the lack of other information about the illness.
State Hospital psychiatrist Paul D. Whitehead, who is Mitchell's doctor, testified on Tuesday that he believes medications will work for Mitchell.
On Wednesday, another state psychiatrist, Cynthia L. Vitko, who is trying to treat Mitchell's wife and co-defendant, Wanda Eileen Barzee, testified that she agreed with Whitehead's assessment of Mitchell.
Barzee had a similar hearing last year, after which Atherton ruled she could be forcibly medicated. That decision is currently under review by the Utah Supreme Court.
Mitchell and Barzee have refused psychotropic drugs at the hospital, and they do not participate in group sessions aimed at competency restoration, according to doctors.
Mitchell, 53, and Barzee, 61, are charged with aggravated kidnapping and sexual assault in the disappearance of then-14-year-old Elizabeth from her Federal Heights home the night of June 5, 2002.
After a nine-month odyssey that took them to California and back, Mitchell, Barzee and Smart were taken into custody on a Sandy street on March 12, 2003.
Police say Mitchell and Barzee apparently wanted to make Elizabeth a plural wife.
www.sltrib.com/ci_6873348?source=rss