KEW v. State

333 S.W.3d 850, 2010 Tex. App. LEXIS 10274, 2010 WL 5395648
Procedural entryThis page is a short order in KEW v. State. Read the opinion of the Court — 276 S.W.3d 686
Court of Appeals of Texas·Decided December 30, 2010·No. 01-08-00371-CV, 01-08-00372-CV·Published

Opinion

333 S.W.3d 850 (2010)

K.E.W., Appellant,
v.
The STATE of Texas, Appellee.

Nos. 01-08-00371-CV, 01-08-00372-CV.

Court of Appeals of Texas, Houston (1st Dist.).

December 30, 2010.

*851 Richard H. Branson, League City, TX, for Appellant.

Donald S. Glywasky, Galveston County Legal Department, Robert V. Shattuck, Jr., Attorney at Law, Roger L. Ezell, Criminal District Attorney, Galveston, TX, for Appellee.

Panel consists of Justices KEYES, HIGLEY, and BLAND.

OPINION

EVELYN V. KEYES, Justice.

In these accelerated appeals, the trial court signed orders to commit appellant K.E.W. for temporary mental health services[1] and for the administration of psychoactive medication.[2]See Texas Mental Health Code, TEX. HEALTH & SAFETY CODE ANN. §§ 574.034, .070, .106(a)(1) (Vernon 2010). A divided panel of this Court held there was legally insufficient evidence to support the two orders, reversed the trial court's orders, and rendered judgments in K.E.W.'s favor. K.E.W. v. State, 276 S.W.3d 686, 700 (Tex.App.-Houston [1st Dist.] 2008), rev'd, 315 S.W.3d 16 (Tex. 2010). The Supreme Court of Texas held the evidence was legally sufficient, reversed our judgments, and remanded the cases to this Court to consider K.E.W.'s factual-sufficiency complaints. 315 S.W.3d at 27. We affirm.

Background

On April 17, 2008, K.E.W., a patient of Gulf Coast Center Mental Health and Mental Retardation ("MHMR") who had previously been diagnosed as schizophrenic, went in for an appointment that he had made. Although a regular patient, he had not been seen by the staff since the prior October. While at the Gulf Coast Center, K.E.W. informed the staff that he had a plan to impregnate multiple women and asked repeatedly for a particular female staff member, his adult stepdaughter, whom he stated that he wanted to impregnate. The staff became concerned with his extremely paranoid behavior and his attempts to interfere with female staff even though he was directed otherwise. The staff ultimately placed the female staff member behind a closed door until K.E.W. *852 could be escorted away by the police. K.E.W. would not stand still or listen to others and was walking in and around the building, pacing and smoking, refusing to stop or calm down. Dr. Pugh, the physician who saw him for the appointment, believed that K.E.W. did not have an appropriate insight into his situation and might be a danger to others and called the police. When the police arrived, K.E.W. was uncooperative, and he was placed in the back of the police car and escorted to the hospital at The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston.

At the hospital, K.E.W. explained to doctors that aliens had put a computer chip in his abdomen and right ring finger and that he was chosen to help populate a new and better race of humans. His goal was to search and find as many women as he could to procreate quickly, and he had a firm belief that there was a flock or group of women whom he needed to find and impregnate, one of whom was his adult stepdaughter. He believed that some of the women for whom he was searching had been at or near the hospital when he was brought into the emergency room and that the hospital staff had known that and discussed it but had withheld information from him about it, and he was very angry at the staff for not giving him the information he needed. He became very agitated and insisted that he needed to leave in order to complete his mission and asked the treatment team to help him contact the women. He was diagnosed as having schizoaffective disorder, specifically being paranoid schizo-chronic.

The State applied for court-ordered temporary mental health services and for an order to administer psychoactive medication. At the hearing on the State's application for temporary commitment, in addition to limited testimony from two members of the Gulf Coast Center's staff about the events that led to K.E.W.'s hospitalization and testimony about appellant's medical records, there was testimony from Dr. Michael Stone and Dr. Waleska Ortiz. Both were physicians who met with K.E.W. at the hospital after he was taken there from the Gulf Coast Center.

Dr. Stone stated that he did a psychiatric evaluation of K.E.W. and determined that K.E.W. was suffering from mental illness and had been diagnosed as schizophrenic. He testified that K.E.W. demonstrated that he was a danger to others, citing K.E.W.'s statements to him on several occasions that there was a flock or group of women, including his stepdaughter, whom K.E.W. needed to find and impregnate. Dr. Stone also believed that K.E.W. could be a danger to others because, during the meeting with Dr. Pugh, the doctor with whom K.E.W. had the appointment at MHMR, K.E.W. "was very threatening to the point [that] Dr. Pugh felt [K.E.W.] needed to be admitted [to the hospital] immediately." Dr. Stone admitted that he had not verified the existence of any of the women whom K.E.W. claimed he wished to impregnate and, as far as he knew, K.E.W. had taken no concrete steps to find them, although K.E.W. had a plan to carry out the creation of a new society and carried papers about the plan with him. Dr. Stone also admitted that K.E.W. said that he was not planning on impregnating the women against their will, but he was concerned as to whether K.E.W. would understand what a woman would consider to be against her will. He agreed that the only group K.E.W. was a danger to was these women and women in society in general because K.E.W., in his confused belief, might mistakenly believe that a woman was one who was promised to him and wanted to be impregnated.

*853 Dr. Ortiz testified that, while in the hospital, K.E.W. became agitated regarding the women he was seeking. She detailed an incident where K.E.W. believed that some of the women he was seeking had been in the emergency room and that he had just missed them. K.E.W. believed that the hospital staff, including Dr. Ortiz, knew this and had information regarding where the women were, but were withholding it from him. He thought that he heard Dr. Ortiz and the nurses laughing about how he had just missed the women, thought it was a conspiracy against him, and was very upset. He was convinced that Dr. Ortiz was able to access special agents who would have the key that would take him to the portal where the women were located. He also told Dr. Ortiz that he had the ability to hear thoughts through special frequencies and told her that he may have heard or perceived that she was probably lying to him.

Dr. Ortiz was concerned about two behaviors of K.E.W. as potentially dangerous. The first was the potential for nonconsensual sexual interaction with the specific women he sought, if he were to find them. She testified that K.E.W. was very intrusive, that he invaded her space on several occasions, and that she did not know if he would understand that "no" meant "no," given his state of mind at the time. However, she admitted that K.E.W. did not state that he intended to impregnate anyone against her will and did not make sexual advances towards anyone on the staff. Dr. Ortiz's second concern was related to K.E.W.'s misperception that he received information from brain waves or special abilities. Dr. Ortiz feared that K.E.W. could get very angry and agitated if he perceived or misperceived certain information. She thought that the hospital unit was organized and safe but, if K.E.W.

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KEW v. State, 333 S.W.3d 850, 2010 Tex. App. LEXIS 10274, 2010 WL 5395648 (Tex. Ct. App. 2010).

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