By VAL VANBROCKLIN
This is a true story. It’s in a file at the Boney Courthouse in Anchorage. On May 2, 2025 the Alaska Supreme Court issued a decision In the Matter of the Necessity for the Hospitalization of Lila B. Lila isn’t her real name, but she is a real person. “The matter” wasn’t just Lila’s “hospitalization.” It was also her jailing and forcible head shaving. None of it was necessary.
A police officer took protective custody of Lila and transported her to jail. The jail knew Lila had head lice. She spent six days there before being taken to the Alaska Psychiatric Institute for a 72-hour hold to evaluate whether she met requirements to be committed.
An hour after Lila arrived at API, a state attorney requested a court order to forcibly shave her head. Seventeen minutes later a magistrate convened a hearing in which everyone participated telephonically. Lila’s court appointed attorney learned of the hearing five minutes before it started. The hearing lasted less than an hour.
Two API staff testified: Edward Czech, an RN and admissions screening manager, and Sean Farley, an advanced nurse practitioner with psychiatry expertise. Czech testified a lice shampoo would kill the active head lice but not the eggs, which could hatch in nine or ten days. The shampoo “might not” reach lice embedded in mats in Lila’s hair, and there was no place at API to truly isolate her. Lice could lead to cellulitis, which “at its most extreme … can cause sepsis and death.”
Farley testified that isolating Lila would be stigmatizing and hamper her participation in therapeutic activities. He felt reluctant to be with Lila where an “ectoparasite” could go from her head to his. He believed shaving her head was the least intrusive treatment because she hadn’t cooperated with shampooing. He acknowledged the shaving might be traumatic and require restraining Lila.
Lila testified. One of her objections to having her head shaved was religious. She tried her best to care for her skin and hair but struggled because she was homeless. She had weeping infections from eczema. If they cut off her hair, she’d have to stare at herself in the mirror and remember the day forever. That would be “torture.” She couldn’t understand why API sought to shave her head. She was willing to use the shampoo, she was just trying to take the mats out of her hair first. She never refused shampoo treatment. API staff was miscommunicating her position.
A Superior Court judge granted the state’s request and API forcibly shaved Lila’s head. Ten days later she was released when the court concluded she didn’t meet commitment criteria.
The Alaska Supreme Court decided Lila’s forcible head shaving was “error.” The justices concluded the judge shouldn’t have granted the order because the state failed to prove “by clear and convincing evidence that shaving Lila’s head was the least restrictive means of treating her lice infestation.”
Lila’s forcible head shaving should never have happened. Two things dictate that besides the law—common sense and compassion. Both were lacking in Lila’s case.
First, common sense. After Lila’s coherent testimony, why did no one ask her what she thought was a reasonable amount of time to let her work on her mats before trying the shampoo? Also, head lice can’t jump or fly. They don’t carry disease. They’re not considered a public health hazard. There was no need to isolate Lila or shave her head. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Farley and others could have been protected by not touching Lila’s head, not using her hair grooming tools, and not sharing her clothing or bedding. That’s how the Anchorage School District handles lice. Their policy specifically calls for not isolating kids.
Czech’s portrayal of the situation as life and death was absurd. The jail didn’t address Lila’s lice for six days. She was on a 72-hour hold. No one was going to get sepsis and die during that time. Google death from head lice. It generally takes years of neglect.
Farley’s testimony about isolation and its stigma interfering with Lila’s psychiatric treatment was equally absurd. Her 72-hour hold for evaluation meant she might be released with no treatment, which happened. What about the stigma outside of API from a shaved head with weeping sores? If Lila had remained at API, what impact on her mental health might the trauma, stigma, and violation of her religious beliefs from her forcibly shaved head have?
The state’s attorney, whose job isn’t to be API’s lackey, should never have sought to forcibly shave Lila’s head given her 72-hour evaluation hold and that she’d only been there an hour trying to get her mats untangled before shampooing. If she got committed for treatment, shaving could be revisited.
It was nonsensical for the Superior Court judge to issue the order. She’d previously represented Alaskans in commitment proceedings as an Assistant Public Defender. She understood the head shaving could be revisited after the evaluation, if Lila was committed. API’s and the state’s attorney’s absurdity didn’t relieve her of her duty to safeguard Lila’s rights.
The other thing lacking was compassion. The state’s attorney and judge never saw Lila or her hair during the telephonic hearing. They also failed to see her as a human being deserving of compassion.
Lila’s forcible head shaving wasn’t life or death. It wasn’t about protecting her from interference in treatment she never received. It was API’s preference for the quickest, easiest way to manage head lice. Our state Supreme Court has recognized API has interests in institutional stability and economic considerations that can conflict with patients’ wishes and the law. That’s what happened here, and API’s interests won.
The Alaska Supreme Court has fostered this lack of common sense and compassion for Alaskans with mental illness, and the continued violation of their constitutional and human rights. Lila’s head shaving wasn’t the only “error” in this story. She was illegally detained.
Over a decade ago, the Alaska Supreme Court ruled that persons committed 72 hours for evaluation must be transported “immediately” to an evaluation facility and, if that’s not possible, the evaluation must take place without delay where they are being held. I’ve written before about the state Supreme Court repeatedly telling Superior Courts they must adhere to these laws—and the Superior Courts failing to do so.
Lila spent six days in jail and ten days in API for a 72-hour evaluation hold. Neither the Superior nor Supreme Court paid any attention.
Lisa would have had more rights if she’d committed a crime.
To the state’s attorney, the judge, and the justices in Lila’s case, I urge you to examine your lack of common sense and compassion, as well as your disregard of state statutes and the Alaska Constitution.
To Lila, I am sorry, ashamed, and angry. You deserved more. The Alaska Supreme Court acknowledging that what was done to you was “error” is too little, too late. May your suffering not be in vain, as too many cases before yours have been.
Val Van Brocklin was a senior trial attorney with the Anchorage District Attorney’s Office before she was asked to join the state’s Office of Special Prosecution and Appeals, where she had statewide responsibility for cases so complex they required specialized investigative and prosecution efforts. She was then recruited by the U.S. Attorney’s Office to prosecute complex white collar crime, for which she received the FBI’s commendation. Now she is an author, international speaker, and trainer whose work has been featured on ABC and Discovery. More about Val at this link.
