US v. Tucker: Six years ago, Tucker was charged with numerous charges related to child pornography (and a gun charge). In 2017, three months after his arrest, his counsel moved to have him declared incompetent. In September of that year a district court found Tucker to be so and committed him to the custody of the Attorney General. In the intervening years, Tucker made some progress towards restoration with medication, but also had issues consistently taking it. Eventually, a psychologist requested that not only Tucker be subjected to further treatment but to an order allowing involuntary medication. After the case bounced up and down from the district court, that court ultimately granted the motion to allow involuntary medication, but stayed the order pending review from the Fourth Circuit.
On appeal, the Fourth Circuit affirmed the forced medication order and refused to order Tucker’s release. As to the length of Tucker’s commitment, the court found that the Government retained their substantial interest in prosecuting him and, therefore, rendering him competent. While recognizing that Tucker had been detained “for a significant amount of time,” the court also noted that he was charged with multiple offenses that carried 15-year mandatory minimum sentences and thus “this is not a situation where Tucker’s pretrial detention will last considerably longer than his likely sentence.” In addition, Tucker’s charged offenses were serious and included not just possession of child pornography but twice seeking to entice a minor into production of child pornography. The court thus found no clear error in the district court’s finding that the involuntary medication order would further its interest in prosecuting Tucker. The court also found Tucker’s current confinement was “reasonable” and denied his request for immediate release.
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