《Filed 1504》.DOCVIP

Filed 1/5/04 IN THE SUPREME COURT OF CALIFORNIA In re KANURI SURGURY QAWI, ) S100099 ) on Habeas Corpus. ) Ct.App. 1/1 A093094 ) Alameda County ) Super. Ct. No. 104714 The Mentally Disordered Offender Act (MDO Act), enacted in 1985, requires that offenders who have been convicted of violent crimes related to their mental disorders, and who continue to pose a danger to society, receive mental health treatment during and after the termination of their parole until their mental disorder can be kept in remission. (Pen. Code, § 2960 et seq.) Although the nature of an offender’s past criminal conduct is one of the criteria for treatment as a mentally disordered offender (MDO), the MDO Act itself is not punitive or penal in nature. (People v. Superior Court (Myers) (1996) 50 Cal.App.4th 826, 836-840 (Myers).) Rather, the purpose of the scheme is to provide MDO’s with treatment while at the same time protecting the general public from the danger to society posed by an offender with a mental disorder. (Pen. Code, § 2960.) In keeping with the scheme’s nonpunitive purpose, Penal Code section 2972, subdivision (g), provides that MDO’s who have been civilly committed after their parole period has expired are granted the same rights that are afforded involuntary mental patients under article 7 of chapter 2 of California’s general civil commitment scheme — the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act (LPS Act; Welf. and Inst. Code, §?5000 et seq.). Therefore, rather than grant a specific set of rights to former offenders committed under the MDO Act, the Legislature instead chose to reference the rights granted to involuntary patients from the general population who have been civilly committed under the LPS Act. In this case, we must decide whether respondent Kanuri Surgury Qawi, petitioner below, an MDO, has the right under subdivision (g) of Penal Code section 2972 to refuse antipsychotic medication prescribed for his mental disorder in the absence of a judicial determination