United States of America v. Danny T. Roney, k/a Khalid Abdul Al-Mu’Min, a/k/a Danny Roney

Columbia, South Carolina, criminal defense lawyer represented the Defendant charged with mailing threatening communications via the United States Postal Service in violation of 18 U.S.C. 870(c).

Reported by: Kent Morlan

Danny Roney was committed to a federal mental-health facility after being found
not guilty by reason of insanity for mailing threats to his lawyer. Three years later, the district court conditionally discharged him under a court-prescribed regimen of psychiatric care. One condition of his discharge barred him from possessing weapons. So when Roney robbed a store at gunpoint, the district court revoked his conditional discharge.

Roney contests the revocation of his conditional discharge under 18 U.S.C. § 4243.
He argues that § 4243 permits revocation only when he violates conditions that are part of his “prescribed regimen of medical, psychiatric, or psychological care or treatment.” Any conditions ancillary to his treatment regimen may not form the basis of a revocation. The Government—citing four favorable circuit courts—argues for the opposite interpretation, urging us to hold that the statute permits revocation based on violations of so-called “ancillary conditions.” We agree with Roney that a court may revoke his conditional discharge only for a failure to comply with the prescribed regimen. But this statutory limitation does not help Roney because the condition he violated was not ancillary to, but part of, the regimen prescribed to manage his mental illness.

Section 4243 governs the “[h]ospitalization of a person found not guilty only by
reason of insanity.” It provides the steps necessary for initial commitment of such
individuals to a medical facility (§ 4243(a)–(e)), their discharge from commitment
(§ 4243(f)), and revocation of conditional discharge and recommitment (§ 4243(g)).

Affirmed