Ex-mental patient’s case on hold

Criminal proceedings were temporarily suspended Friday against Kanuri Qawi, the former state mental hospital patient who won a seminal 10-year legal battle for the right to refuse his psychiatric medication, only to later be charged with murdering his Alameda roommate in the midst of a psychotic episode.

Qawi, 46, faces murder charges in Alameda County Superior Court in connection with the stabbing death last September of John Milton Sr., 59. He is known in the annals of mental health law for his 2004 California Supreme Court victory that gave an entire class of state mental hospital patients a limited right to refuse psychiatric medication.

Qawi was scheduled to enter a plea Friday, but Superior Court Judge Delbert Gee temporarily suspended proceedings after Deputy Public Defender Samuel Grayson told the court that Qawi had been too mentally ill to participate or cooperate in his own defense.

Senior Deputy Dist. Atty. Charlette Green said Qawi would be evaluated by a mental health clinician to determine whether he is competent to stand trial. If he is not, he probably will be treated in the same state mental hospital system that released him in 2005 after a decade-long stay.

While some patients have benefited from the right to refuse the drugs, which often cause serious side effects, clinicians say others have suffered unnecessary and damaging psychotic episodes as a result of their refusals.

Assaults on other patients and on staff by patients refusing medication are also up at the hospitals.

Qawi and Milton were rooming together in a transitional housing compound for veterans on the former naval base in Alameda. On Sept. 13, Qawi phoned police to report that he had been kidnapped and sexually humiliated -- a tale that proved to be delusional. When an officer arrived at Qawi’s apartment to hear his tale, he found Milton’s decomposing body in a bedroom.

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lee.romney@latimes.com