He won the right to refuse antipsychotic drugs in '04 ruling
An ex-con and former mental patient who won a landmark state Supreme Court
decision in 2004 that allowed hundreds of mental patients to stop taking forced
medication appeared in an Alameda courtroom Friday on charges that he killed
his roommate in September.
Qawi was sentenced to prison in 1991 for assault and battery for an
unprovoked attack on a couple in Oakland, a case that eventually led the state
Supreme Court to rule in January 2004 that mentally ill former prisoners who
are held in state hospitals after completing their sentences have the right to
refuse psychiatric medication unless they are incompetent or dangerous.
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