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The U.S. Supreme Court last week moved (indirectly) to protect the rights of people to sue over involuntary commitment. However, in a new case before the Court, forced psychiatric treatment could, in some situations, become impossible to appeal. In another case, the federal government seeks to directly expand its own authority to civilly commit people.
The U.S. Supreme Court issued its opinion last week in The GEO Group v. Menocal, affirming that GEO Group could not claim sovereign immunity from lawsuits for unlawful behavior merely because it was operating its detention facility at the behest of the federal government’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). I reported on the case in October 2025 because a group of private psychiatric hospitals had intervened, arguing that they should also be immune from lawsuits, since they were essentially doing the government’s bidding when implementing involuntary commitments.
The Supreme Court’s decision to allow Menocal’s lawsuit against GEO Group wasn’t exactly unanimous, but only because some of the justices had different reasons for dismissing GEO Group’s arguments. And evidently, none of the justices found the hospitals’ arguments even worth mentioning. Basically, the Court affirmed that ample precedent has already clarified government contractors do not enjoy the same types of immunity that governments themselves often do. Some observers believe the clarity of this particular ruling will, moving ahead, embolden those suing government contractors.
Hunter v. United States cuts more perilously close to the heart of issues of concern at PsychForce Report.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), “Between 2013 and 2023, petitioner [Munson Hunter] used fraudulently obtained Social Security numbers to open 14 bank accounts, acquire at least 18 credit cards, and apply for loans from the Small Business Administration.” These acts “ultimately cost others nearly half a million dollars.”
Discussing Hunter v. United States, according to Scotusblog, Hunter pled guilty, and as part of the plea bargain, also agreed to waive some of his basic rights to appeal. He was sentenced to 51 months in prison along with “a special condition of supervised release, to follow his prison sentence.” That “special condition” was the possibility of involuntary psychiatric treatment being implemented after his release from prison.
The DOJ argues that Hunter “suffers from symptoms of anxiety and depression.” Hunter was diagnosed with both conditions at age ten, and his emotional challenges intensified “after [he] was sexually assaulted at the age of 14.” Hunter has repeatedly declined psychiatric medications, but the DOJ believes that psychiatric treatments could “assist the probation officer in providing services to [him] while on supervision.”
When the possibility of coercive drugging first came up in the court discussions of the guilty plea and sentencing, Hunter said to the judge, “I want to take mental health programs, but I don’t want to take any medication. I don’t drink. I don’t use drugs. I don’t even curse. I don’t want to be forced to medicate.”
The judge assured Hunter that the medications would not actually be forced on him, that this particular condition was more of a considered advisory, and that he would have flexible leeway with his assigned probation officer. However, the judge’s final sentencing stated, “You must take all mental-health medications that are prescribed by your treating physician.”
Hunter has yet to be released from prison, but launched an appeal against this forced treatment provision right away. Hunter was told, though, that he had already waived his rights to appeal as part of the plea deal. He has since fought that declaration all the way to the Supreme Court—arguing that the coercive drugging was an unlawful added provision.
Notably, the DOJ doesn’t appear to be arguing that Hunter’s anxiety or depression were related to his crimes—there’s only an implication that treatment might reduce the likelihood of recidivism. Hunter therefore argues that “the forced medication provision of his sentence violates due process” and is unconstitutional. He cites the longstanding “right to be free from the ‘unwanted administration of antipsychotic drugs’ absent an ‘essential or overriding [governmental] interest.’"
The Cato Institute has intervened in support of Hunter, arguing, “The prospect of unconstitutional sentences raises grave public concerns. Plea bargaining should not make those sentences invulnerable to judicial review.”
The Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and National Association of Federal Defenders also support Hunter, warning that allowing government prosecutors to add unconstitutional probation requirements sets a bad precedent with implications far broader than only improperly imposed compulsory drugging.
But even only with respect to compulsory drugging, this case highlights more broadly how little we know about the prevalence of coercive treatment in probation requirements. How many other people might be in similar situations to Hunter — pressured and arguably unconstitutionally manipulated into forced treatment?
How many convicted criminals in the U.S. have had some sort of mental health treatment provisions attached to their probation release conditions— and how many without due process? I’ve seen no data to answer those questions. (If you’ve seen any, please let me know.)
The available evidence suggests it’s likely a very large number of people.
Many prisons now require mental health screening of inmates upon admission, and so, not surprisingly, there are high rates of apparent mental disorders in prison populations—alleged lifetime prevalence rates like 43%. (Although, to be clear, public discussions and media reporting about these rates all too often ignore the fact that the alleged lifetime rates of mental disorders in the general population are equally high or higher.)
And 2.9 million Americans are currently on probation (with another million on parole).
Meanwhile, as in Hunter’s case, every independent, large-scale study I’ve seen of the legality of civil commitments and forced treatment (granted, there haven’t been many) has found that these are often imposed without proper due process. For example, yet another Ombudsperson investigation in British Columbia released in January 2026 found that half of civil commitments in that province were still being implemented illegally—and that’s occurred with generally law-abiding, non-criminal patients and while the government agencies, health authority attorneys and legal departments, and medical staff knew they were actively being monitored for compliance!
Consequently, looking at the flimsy rationale used by prosecutors to impose forced treatment on Hunter, which has subsequently been upheld by successive judges, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to speculate that mental health treatment requirements may have gotten imposed on tens or hundreds of thousands or more people as part of their probation. Yet these people are completely unaccounted for in our already porous data about the growing numbers of people subjected to forced drugging while living in communities. And we certainly have no evidence such coercive drugging is, in aggregate, achieving any meaningful, positive ends.
The fact that the current Department of Justice is supporting such a dubious way of imposing psychiatric drugging may be reflective of a more aggressive attitude about involuntary treatment from the Trump Administration. The Cato Institute thinks so.
Separately, the Cato Institute is drawing attention to another case that came to the Supreme Court in January.
“This case presents a question with profound implications for personal liberty: whether the federal government can civilly commit people who are neither charged with nor convicted of a federal crime.”
Duane Berry left a fake bomb outside a bank—a crime for which he would have gotten a maximum prison sentence of five years. However, Berry was declared mentally ill and incompetent to stand trial and transferred to a federal psychiatric facility. The criminal charge against him was eventually entirely dismissed. However, Berry has now been involuntarily committed for ten years and counting.
There is increasing public awareness about people declared “incompetent to stand trial” being detained in jails or psychiatric hospitals for inordinately long periods awaiting “competency restoration” and trial. But what’s unique about Berry’s case is that the charges against him were entirely dismissed in 2019—after which it was the federal government that civilly committed him. Civil commitment is a power granted only to the states except in specifically proscribed circumstances. But with this case, the federal government seeks to circumvent states and dramatically expand its own powers to civilly commit people indefinitely.
If that reminds you of Trump’s executive order seeking to expand civil commitment through unclear means, that’s what the Cato Institute writers noticed, too—they described the government’s position as a dangerous, explicit attempt to expand federal policing powers. (Their full submission to the Court is here.)
“In Berry’s case, the federal government is asserting a power to indefinitely detain any mentally ill person charged with a federal crime, even after charges are no longer pending,” writes the Cato Institute’s Matthew Cavedon in Reason, pointing with concern to Trump’s various other efforts to increase the number of involuntary commitments. Several Cato Institute authors also warn: “Left standing, this decision invites the federal government to confine indefinitely any mentally ill person ever charged with a federal crime.”
Berry’s own attorneys similarly summarize: “This case presents a question with profound implications for personal liberty: whether the federal government can civilly commit people who are neither charged with nor convicted of a federal crime.”
Another concern is that, in none of these three cases I’ve reported on has there been any mental health, psychiatric rights, disability rights, or related organizations providing submissions to the Court. Why is that? It seems to be a worrying sign.
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