UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

┐ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, │ Plaintiff-Appellee, │ > No. 22-5002 │ v. │ │ RICHARD AUSTIN WILLIAMS, │ Defendant-Appellant. │ ┘ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee at Knoxville. No. 3:98-cr-00005-1—Thomas A. Varlan, District Judge.

Argued: June 7, 2023

Decided and Filed: June 12, 2023

Before: SUTTON, Chief Judge; LARSEN and MURPHY, Circuit Judges.

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COUNSEL ARGUED: Kevin M. Schad, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER, Cincinnati, Ohio, for Appellant. Luke A. McLaurin, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY’S OFFICE, Knoxville, Tennessee, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Kevin M. Schad, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER, Cincinnati, Ohio, for Appellant. Luke A. McLaurin, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY’S OFFICE, Knoxville, Tennessee, for Appellee. _________________

OPINION _________________

SUTTON, Chief Judge. Richard Williams violated the conditions of release that a district court imposed after it found him not guilty of an alleged crime by reason of insanity. Placing the burden on Williams, the court found that Williams posed “a substantial risk” of harm No. 22-5002 United States v. Williams Page 2

to the public and committed him to the custody of the Attorney General. 18 U.S.C. § 4243(g). We affirm.

I.

Williams suffers from mental illness, a bipolar form of schizoaffective disorder. In his case, the disorder has led to delusions and auditory hallucinations as well as to “aggressive, impulsive, and threatening behavior.” R.132 at 36.

One feature of Williams’s illness has been a fixation on a toothbrush that he designed in the 1980s. Williams provided sample toothbrushes to Boucherie, a brush manufacturing company. The company decided not to acquire his brush, but Williams believes that Boucherie stole his design and denied him credit for it.

Williams called Boucherie in 1997. Believing that it had mistreated him, Williams threatened to mail a bomb to the company if it did not compensate him for his work. Instead of a check, Williams received a visit from law enforcement and a felony charge for sending a threatening message in interstate commerce. See 18 U.S.C. § 875(c).

After a bench trial, the district court found Williams not guilty by reason of insanity. See id. §§ 17, 4242(b)(3). The court committed Williams to civil institutional care until his mental health improved. See id. § 4243(a).

The court released Williams nearly two years later. Intervening treatment, the court reasoned, had improved Williams’s condition to the point that he did not present a danger to the public. See id. § 4243(f)(2).

His freedom came with conditions. Among several others, Williams could not communicate with Boucherie and had to take his prescribed medications. Violating his conditions of release, the court warned, would result in arrest and a new assessment of whether he remained eligible for release