Should Massachusetts man be forcibly medicated so he can be tried for arson?

By Brittany Johnson, Kevin Rothstein

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    LEOMINSTER, Massachusetts (WCVB) — Federal prosecutors want to forcibly medicate a mentally ill arson suspect to try and make him competent to stand trial for the 2021 arson attack in Leominster.

According to prosecutors, Edmond Charrette, armed with a gas can set a Chinese food restaurant in Leominster on fire in 2021.

Charrette was arrested about a month after the attack. In court papers, prosecutors say his clothing had a menu from the restaurant melted on it, and surveillance video showed Charrette on fire as he jumped out of the burning restaurant. He went to the hospital a few hours later with burns all over his body.

Three years later, Charrette is still in federal custody, his case in limbo.

Charrette’s mental health has deteriorated to the point where the judge in the case has ruled he isn’t competent to stand trial, according to court records.

He was ordered to be held at Federal Medical Center Butner in North Carolina in January. A psychologist there wrote that his “competency to stand trial can be restored with the appropriate treatment with anti-psychotic medicine” and that “Mr. Charrette has refused to accept recommended medication treatment on a voluntary basis.”

A hearing on the prosecutor’s request to forcibly medicate him is scheduled for Oct. 28.

This is not the first time Charrette has been in federal custody and in a mental health crisis.

5 Investigates obtained video from 2019 when Charrette was on suicide watch inside the psychiatric wing of Federal Medical Center Devens in Massachusetts. He was serving a sentence after pleading guilty in 2018 to federal charges that he made false statements to acquire a firearm and knowingly made a false entry on a firearm application or record.

The video detailed an incident where Charrette threatened to throw milk cartons full of urine and feces at anyone who came into his cell.

After repeated attempts to order Charrette to come to the cell door and be handcuffed failed, and repeated applications of pepper spray didn’t lead to compliance, the video shows heavily armored officers rushing in and forcibly restraining him.

Charrette was eventually released on probation. His probation ended when he was arrested in 2021 for the arson, and he was returned to the federal prison system.

“The reason they’re proposing he take medication is not for his wellbeing,” explained Lasell University professor Kellie Wallace, who studies mental competency and the criminal justice system. “It’s really in this instance about can he regain competency to stand trial so that we can move him forward in the system.”

Wallace said a decision about forced medication has to balance an inmate’s rights with society’s.

“Arson is a pretty big deal,” Wallace said. “It’s a very significant event that damages individuals (and) communities.”

“We really don’t want to drop that charge,” she said. “However, keeping an individual whose competency is in question in one of these facilities is not in anyone’s best interest because research has shown that competency restoration programs that take place in jails and prisons are not successful because of the environment in jails and prisons.”

Wallace said the harmful effect prisons can have on mental health was on display in the video of Charrette’s forced cell extraction.

The professor told 5 Investigates that we can have a system that respects mental health and criminal justice, but we don’t have one yet.

“That’s really at the heart of this issue is that we don’t have the resources for these folks who need them unless they get funneled into the justice system, who through no fault of its own is ill-equipped to handle them and as acting how they have been trained to act, which doesn’t serve anybody as these types of situations show us,” Wallace said.

Charrette’s lawyer did not respond to requests for comment.

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