Simone D. wins!
God, I’m so happy. (And God’s happy too! She just dropped by the Spirit Smoking Lounge to do a round of tequila shots and She’s totally stoked about Simone D.).
Simone D. is a psychiatric inmate in the Creedmoor psychiatric institution in New York State.
New York State’s Office of Mental Health (OMH) aggressively pursued obtaining a court order to give Simone D. forced electroshock over her expressed wishes.
Simone D. had clearly said electroshock caused her pain and suffering. She knew what she was talking about. Simone D. had previously had 200 electroshocks.
Making it worse, Simone D. speaks only Spanish, but for years she’s been denied counseling or even staff fluent in Spanish, except for a few week period.
Today, Simone D.’s attorneys announced that she won!
This morning a court ruled that the two-year-old order to give her forced electroshock had been set aside.
Said Kim Darrow, one of her attorneys, “I was able to get the original judge to order a hearing, on the ground that his main reason for granting the shock order — that Simone might not eat and starve — no longer applies.”
Kim explained, “The hearing was held this morning before a different judge. He ruled that Creedmoor failed to carry its burden of proof.” The judge canceled out OMH’s court order for Simone D.’s forced electroshock, that has hung over her head these past two years, since 2005.
This is the second person to win a victory in one month over forced electroshock by the New York State Office of Mental Health following a campaign of public alerts and court battles.
David Oaks, director of MindFreedom International said, “Thank you to Simone D. and her great attorneys, Dennis Feld and Kim Darrow. And thank you to the many people who spoke out against her forced electroshock. The fact that John Kelly and now Simone D. have both been able to stop their planned forced electroshock shows there is hope! Keep up the pressure. Let’s end all forced electroshock!”
From me and all the spirits and God too: a huge thanks to everyone who e-mailed, called, filled out web forms, blogged about the case, spread the word, and kept the pressure on. Way to go.
*****
The original Simone D. post: Why isn’t the feminist blogosphere all over this?
And two follow-ups:
Simone D. story makes the Carnival of Feminists
Forced electroshock: what’s good for the goose is totally unacceptable for the gander
5 Responses to “Simone D. wins!”
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Victoria says:
Hot damn! Awesome! Brilliant and fabulous!
I hope she is able to recover from this harrowing ordeal, and I hope this case will empower other patients/prisoners who find themselves in similar predicaments.
September 1st, 2007 at 9:52 pm EST -
flawedplan says:
And thank you Violet for all your work in those legendary threads. Hot damn all right, sweet taste of victory!
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tigtog says:
This is wonderful news. What relief she must finally be feeling.
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The Ghost of Violet says:
FlawedPlan, thank you for blogging about it in the first place, thank you for teaching us that this is a feminist issue.
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Ann Bartow says:
Hooray for Violet AND for good lawyering!
