A federal judge last month granted immunity to two government employees who were allegedly part of a scheme to keep a man confined at the state’s mental health facility without a legitimate reason.

David Hoffschneider pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to attempted murder and other charges in Jefferson County, then entered treatment at the Colorado Mental Health Institute at Pueblo in 2018. Hoffschneider since left the facility on conditional release in mid-2021, and was released without conditions in early 2022.

In the meantime, however, Hoffschneider alleged a group of nearly two dozen employees and contractors of CMHIP exaggerated or falsified details of his purported mental illness, keeping him confined longer than necessary. Hoffschneider also claimed two people, CMHIP head Jill Marshall and supervisor Richard Pounds, deprived him of his liberty for an extra two weeks by submitting a deficient report to a state judge who was evaluating Hoffschneider’s release.

On April 14, U.S. District Court Judge Charlotte N. Sweeney dismissed all of Hoffschneider’s claims. She concluded that for the faulty evaluation, Marshall and Pounds deserved qualified immunity, which shields government employees from liability unless they act in a clearly unreasonable fashion. 

“Mr. Hoffschneider has failed to meet his burden of showing that the constitutional rights Defendants Marshall and Pounds allegedly violated were clearly established,” Sweeney wrote.

Hoffschneider’s lawsuit claimed CMHIP personnel falsely determined he was a psychopath who had a high risk of violence during his commitment. An unnamed employee allegedly said they had seen staff “laughing about keeping him institutionalized” and diagnosed him with “personality disorders that never existed” prior to his commitment.

The alleged conspiracy to keep Hoffschneider institutionalized, when he was neither dangerous nor mentally ill, amounted to “extreme and outrageous conduct” over a two-year period, his lawsuit claimed.

Relatedly, Marshall and Pounds hired a doctor to allegedly evaluate how fast Hoffschneider was progressing at CMHIP. They then used the doctor’s findings at a June 2021 release hearing in front of Jefferson County District Court Judge Tamara S. Russell. Russell reportedly stopped the hearing after realizing the “audit” did not satisfy the standard for a release evaluation. The incident allegedly delayed Hoffschneider’s conditional release by two weeks.

Initially, U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael E. Hegarty agreed Hoffschneider’s allegations, if true, demonstrated a violation of his constitutional right to due process.

“Plaintiff alleges that Defendants knew that he was fit for unconditional release but engaged in conduct to prevent it. They were motivated by a vendetta against him personally,” Hegarty wrote in September 2021. “They openly regarded the state court’s denial of release as humorous, and during his otherwise needless two-year commitment, they belittled him.”

However, Sweeney, soon after her appointment as a district judge last summer, determined Hegarty misapplied the law to some of Hoffschneider’s claims. She granted qualified immunity to the defendants for their alleged unconstitutional conduct during the bulk of Hoffschneider’s confinement.

The government then moved to dismiss Hoffschneider’s two remaining claims: that Marshall and Pounds deprived him of his liberty by submitting a deficient release report to the state judge, and that all of the defendants acted outrageously by keeping him confined unnecessarily.

The Colorado Attorney General’s Office wrote that, “at worst,” Marshall and Pounds “converted” an audit of Hoffschneider’s progress into a release report. Such conduct was not clearly unconstitutional and, even if it disturbed Russell at the hearing, she soon ordered Hoffschneider’s conditional release.

Sweeney agreed Marshall and Pounds’ alleged actions did not amount to a clear violation of Hoffschneider’s constitutional rights. Because the remainder of Hoffschneider’s lawsuit alleging “extreme and outrageous conduct” was based on state law, not federal law, Sweeney dismissed the entirety of the allegations. She noted Hoffschneider can pursue his claims further in state court, if he wishes.

Hoffschneider has since appealed the dismissal of his lawsuit.

The case is Hoffschneider v. Marshall et al.