United States v. Frierson

LYNCH, Circuit Judge.

This case concerns the procedures for involuntarily committing a federal prisoner, Michael Frierson, to a medical center for in-patient care for a mental disease. Because of the resulting infringement on the liberty interests that even an imprisoned person retains, such commitments are girded by statutory procedural requirements set forth in 18 U.S.C. § 4245. Those statutory procedures were Congress’s response to Vitek v. Jones, 445 U.S. 480, 491-94, 100 S.Ct. 1254, 68 L.Ed.2d 552 (1980), which held that the involuntary transfer of a prisoner to a mental hospital…