RAIFORD, Fla. — A former Florida death row inmate now sentenced to life behind bars for murder, has sued three Florida Department of Corrections officials for refusing his request for chemical castration.
Akeem Muhammad, born Richard Michael Rinaldo, was convicted and sentenced to death for the July 20, 1995, murder of Jimmy Lee Swanson in Fort Lauderdale.
In 2001, the Florida Supreme Court overturned the sentence and Muhammad was later sentenced to life in prison.
In his suit, Muhammad claims to be a practicing Muslim and because of his religious beliefs is prohibited from “unnecessarily looking at, talking to, thinking about, being touched by, and touching females that he is not related or married to.”
Prison policies, Muhammad alleges, have caused him to suffer from a “psychosexual or paraphilic disorder.”
The disorder – with which Muhammad has never been officially diagnosed – has caused him to become a danger to women working at the prison and negatively affects his daily life, the suit says.
“(My) psychosexual disorder daily causes (me) great mental distress, substantially burdens (my) exercise of religion, and impairs (me) ability to live and function normally,” Muhammad writes in the suit.
Chemical castration – using antiandrogen therapy that decreases the amount of testosterone his body produces – would alleviate the problem, the inmate argues.
Because he has never been diagnosed with a “psychosexual or paraphilic disorder,” though, prison medical staff have repeatedly refused to give him the treatment, the suit says.
“’Mental health decides the course of your treatment as a team,’” Muhammad quotes officials as saying. “’You cannot diagnose yourself. Hormonal therapy is only used when medically indicated.’”
Among other things, Muhammad’s lawsuit demands he be diagnosed with a “psychosexual or paraphilic disorder” and allow him to be chemically castrated.
Muhammad has filed at least 14 federal lawsuits since his conviction for a myriad of reasons, including: Not having access to dental floss, being housed with non-Muslim cellmates, having reduced access to the prison law library, not being given access to religious audio tapes, and not allowing him to have an untucked shirt.
Muhammad lost almost all of the suits and many were dismissed as frivolous and/or malicious and affirmed on appeal.
As of Friday, the Florida DOC officials had not filed a response to Muhammad’s most recent lawsuit.
Cox Media Group
