Federal prosecutors in San Diego have started the process of seeking to involuntarily medicate Matthew Taylor Coleman, a Santa Barbara surf school owner and conspiracy theorist charged with killing his two young children with a spearfishing gun in Mexico, in order to restore his mental competency to stand trial.
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that involuntarily medicating a defendant is legal under certain conditions, though a judge must first rule that four specific requirements are met before ordering such treatment. In a motion filed about a week ago asking a judge to launch that decision-making process, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Diego began laying out arguments for why Coleman should be involuntarily medicated.
Coleman’s attorneys have the opportunity to challenge the request.
Coleman, 43, has pleaded not guilty to federal charges of murdering U.S. nationals on foreign soil for the 2021 slayings of his 2-year-old son, Kaleo, and 10-month-old daughter, Roxy. According to statements outlined in court records, he has itted to the killings in detailed confessions during several interviews with law enforcement. According to the court records, Coleman’s wife told investigators that the couple had delved into the sprawling QAnon conspiracy together, and that Coleman eventually became paranoid by a mix of conspiracy theories, even believing that his wife was compromised and had ed serpent blood from “lizard people” on to their children.
Paranoia and mash-up of conspiracy theories gripped surf instructor before child killingsAuthorities said Coleman disappeared with the couple’s children in the family’s Mercedes Sprinter van on Aug. 7, 2021. His wife called police and was able to track his iPhone, which put him in Mexico. The couple exchanged text messages early in the morning on Aug. 9 in which she told him to take care of their children. But the children were already dead, their bodies discarded in a ditch off a Rosarito highway, and Coleman was arrested as he tried to drive back into the U.S. through the San Ysidro Port of Entry.
In October, U.S. District Judge Cathy Bencivengo ordered Coleman to be committed for treatment after undergoing a mental competency examination. That order is sealed, but prosecutors wrote in a motion filed last month that Coleman was committed because “evidence suggested he has a mental disease or defect and cannot understand the proceedings or help his defense.”
According to online Bureau of Prisons records, Coleman is currently in custody at a federal medical center prison in Springfield, Mo.
Conspiracy theorist charged with killing his children in Rosarito not competent to stand trial, judge findsThe prosecution motion indicates that a Bureau of Prisons doctor has evaluated Coleman over the last 21 weeks. Coleman has not participated in the evaluations, but the doctor “thinks he meets the … criteria for Unspecified Schizophrenia Spectrum and Other Psychotic Disorder and is not competent to proceed or make decisions in his case,” the prosecutors wrote.
According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, that diagnosis applies to people who present symptoms and characteristics of schizophrenia “but do not meet the full criteria for any of the disorders in the schizophrenia spectrum and other psychotic disorders class.” Sometimes it’s a diagnosis made in an emergency room or other setting “in which there is insufficient information to make a more specific diagnosis.”
Citing the prison doctor’s report, prosecutors wrote “this is a chronic condition that probably will not remit without antipsychotic medication.”
According to prosecutors, the Bureau of Prisons previously considered involuntarily medicating Coleman under a different law. But the istrative hearing officer responsible for making that decision “thought he did not seem gravely disabled or a danger to himself or others in custody,” and thus did not meet the criteria.
The prosecutors wrote that the officer made that decision despite the fact that while in custody in 2022, Coleman “cut himself with a razor, dove headfirst into a toilet, punched himself in the face, and slammed his head into the floor.”
The government attorneys wrote that unless Coleman is faking or exaggerating his symptoms — which they note that the prison doctor said is a possibility — “that leaves involuntary medication … as the only other way he might become competent for trial.”
Coleman’s attorneys did not respond to the Union-Tribune’s request for comment about the government’s motion. The defense team has until Aug. 7 to file a response in court. In the meantime and at the request of prosecutors, Bencivengo has ordered the Bureau of Prisons to provide a proposed treatment plan for Coleman within the next two months.
Feds won’t seek death penalty for conspiracy theorist accused of killing his children in Mexico Though several cases over the past few decades have dealt with the legality of involuntarily medicating defendants found incompetent to stand trial, the most important opinion, and the one most relevant to Coleman’s case, came in 2003 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Sell v. United States that involuntary medication is appropriate under certain circumstances.
According to that ruling, a judge such as Bencivengo, or a of appellate court judges, must find that four requirements are met. The first has to do with whether important government interests are at stake. The other three requirements deal with the medication itself and determining whether treatment will be effective, whether there are any alternative and less-intrusive treatments available and whether the istration of the drug is medically appropriate.
The proposed treatment plan ordered by Bencivengo will provide the judge with information about the last three requirements. The prosecution motion filed last month sought to convince the judge on the first requirement — that important government interests are at stake in Coleman’s case. The Supreme Court’s Sell decision states that the “Government’s interest in bringing to trial an individual accused of a serious crime is important.”
Prosecutors argued that “Coleman’s crimes obviously are serious” and compared them to those of defendants in other cases involving challenges to involuntary medication. In one such case, a defendant was accused of making terrorist threats to airport officials “on the eve of the anniversary of the September 11th attacks,” prosecutors wrote.
“Serious no doubt, but Coleman took his 10-month-old daughter and 2-year-old son from their mother, stabbed them to death with a fishing spear, and left their bodies in the dirt,” prosecutors argued.
Once Coleman’s defense team responds to the prosecution’s motion, Bencivengo could call a hearing to listen to oral arguments or could rule on the written submissions.
