Opinion
C080239
04-21-2017
THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. JONATHAN NOEL MAURER, Defendant and Appellant.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115. (Super. Ct. No. F15000100)
A jury found defendant Jonathan Noel Maurer guilty of felony vandalism and damaging jail property. (Pen. Code, §§ 594, subd. (b)(1), 4600, subd. (a).) The trial court placed him on probation; one of the conditions thereof required him to take all prescribed medications unless otherwise ordered by a physician or court.
Defendant appeals, and claims that the probation condition at issue is unconstitutionally overbroad as a matter of law. The People agree that the condition requires modification, but argue defendant's claim is forfeited.
We agree with defendant that the disputed condition is constitutionally infirm. We affirm the judgment, but remand with directions to the trial court to modify the disputed condition of probation.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
On April 4, 2015, defendant was an inmate in the Wayne Brown Correctional Facility. He grew angry during a phone conversation in an open day room and began yelling and screaming. He slammed the phone against the wall and threw a book cart and a microwave against the door, damaging the door's wired detention glass window. The repairs cost $1,209.63.
The probation report recommended probation but expressed "concerns regarding [defendant's] mental stability." The report noted defendant was declared mentally incompetent and admitted to a state psychiatric hospital in 2007 and 2010. In addition, a review of local jail records "appears to indicate [defendant] has had significant problems related to his mental health while in custody."
The trial court placed defendant on three years of probation. Defendant's conditions of probation included that he: "Take all medications as prescribed by a physician and don't discontinue without orders from the doctor or court." Defendant did not object to the condition at sentencing. He timely appealed.
DISCUSSION
Defendant contends the medication condition is unconstitutionally overbroad. He points out that its language covers any and every kind of medication, whether or not it is related to his mental health or criminality. In addition, defendant asserts the condition improperly delegates unfettered discretion to his physician to make important medical decisions on his behalf. The People contend defendant forfeited the issue by failing to object to the condition in the trial court. In the alternative, the People ask us to modify the condition to narrow the medication to any prescription for a "diagnosed mental disorder."
In general, a defendant's failure to make a timely objection to a probation condition forfeits the claim of error on appeal. (People v. Welch (1993) 5 Cal.4th 228, 234.) However, a defendant may challenge for the first time on appeal whether a condition is facially overbroad, so long as the claim presents a pure question of law without reference to the particular sentencing record developed (or left undeveloped) in the trial court. (In re Sheena K. (2007) 40 Cal.4th 875, 889; People v. Turner (2007) 155 Cal.App.4th 1432, 1435.) This is such a challenge; here defendant argues that such a broad condition--forcing a probationer to continue every prescribed medication unless a court or doctor otherwise orders--is never appropriate. He does not solely argue that such a condition is not appropriate in his particular case.
Adults have a state constitutional privacy right and a fundamental due process freedom to refuse to take medications, including antipsychotic medications. (People v. Petty (2013) 213 Cal.App.4th 1410, 1417 (Petty); see also Sell v. United States (2003) 539 U.S. 166, 178-179 [individual has a liberty interest in rejecting medical treatment that only an "essential" or "overriding" state interest might overcome].) "A probation condition that imposes limitations on a person's constitutional rights must closely tailor those limitations to the purpose of the condition to avoid being invalidated as unconstitutionally overbroad. [Citation.]" (In re Sheena K., supra, 40 Cal.4th at p. 890.)
We agree that the probation condition imposed by the trial court is overbroad as a matter of law because it requires defendant to take all medications prescribed by any treating physician, for any identified problem. (See Petty, supra, 213 Cal.App.4th at pp. 1413, 1414, 1420 [probation condition requiring the defendant to "comply with all directions of his/her mental health worker, including taking medication as directed" was "not narrowly drawn" and was "so broad that it could cover any form of medication"]; see also In re Luis F. (2009) 177 Cal.App.4th 176, 184 [agreeing with the defendant that if a similar condition "were intended to subject him to future incarceration for failing to treat his toenail fungus" it would be impermissibly overbroad but finding no evidence of such an intent].) Because this requirement is overly broad in any case, the probation condition as currently drafted cannot stand.
However, a narrower condition would not necessarily impermissibly infringe on defendant's constitutional rights, should it require, for example, that defendant continue on medications prescribed to treat a diagnosed mental disorder which the trial court found would significantly impact his rehabilitation. (See In re Luis F., supra, 177 Cal.App.4th at p. 187 [neither the state nor federal liberty interests in avoiding coerced psychotropic medication are absolute and a probationer's due process rights are not necessarily violated by the imposition of a medication requirement]; People v. Lent (1975) 15 Cal. 3d 481, 486 ["A condition of probation will not be held invalid unless it '(1) has no relationship to the crime of which the offender was convicted, (2) relates to conduct which is not in itself criminal, and (3) requires or forbids conduct which is not reasonably related to future criminality . . . .' [Citation.] Conversely, a condition of probation which requires or forbids conduct which is not itself criminal is valid if that conduct is reasonably related to the crime of which the defendant was convicted or to future criminality"].)
Because we find that a condition requiring defendant's compliance with a medication regimen, if sufficiently narrowed to address defendant's particular medications and circumstances, may be appropriate in this case, we decline to merely strike the condition in its entirety. Instead we shall do as defendant suggests and as this court did in People v. Relkin (2016) 6 Cal.App.5th 1188, at page 1198, and remand with directions to the trial court to cure the constitutional defect which we have described ante.
DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed. We remand the matter to the trial court to modify the probation condition at issue to address the concerns expressed in this opinion.
/s/_________
Duarte, J. We concur: /s/_________
Nicholson, Acting P. J. /s/_________
Robie, J.