C. Rodney Yoder, an American who has been involuntarily committed to a state psychiatric institute for nine years, has issued a call for expert witnesses to support him in his forthcoming involuntary commitment (IVC) trial, to be held from September 2000 in Chester, Illinois.

Yoder's story of battling the state-run mental health institutes for his release is contained in a memorandum he has issued on e-mail based communities. He says his case is becoming a powerful example of bona fide psychiatric oppression, with individuals and mental health activists stridently condenming his confinement as paradigmatic of the abuse of psychiatry by the US government.

Yoder has published a lengthy account of his battles with state-run psychiatric institutions at the web site http://www.stopshrinks.org/yoder/yoder_story.htm

In 1979, as a college Freshman, Yoder was incarcerated after having punched his live-in girlfriend during an argument.

In 1982, an Illinois judge found that Stephen L. Hardy, a prison warden, had conspired with the lllinois Attorney General and other officials to effect an unlawful incarceration of Yoder and he ordered him freed.

Yoder says he further managed to sidestep a vendetta by Hardy following the habeas corpus suit after Hardy petitioned to have Yoder involuntarily committed on the grounds of mental illness.

Yoder was freed in 1983, after which time he was married and worked for several years. In 1989, after divorcing his wife, he had an altercation with her over reports that a neighbor had been sexually molesting his four-year old son. After a drinking binge, Yoder is alleged to have struck his wife with a chair and was charged with aggravated assault.

Yoder said he followed the advice of several legal people dealing with the case by pleading guilty but mentally ill, based on his alcoholism, expecting to be placed in an alcoholism treatment unit for either seven or 10 months.

As a result of his history with the Department of Corrections, he was sent to Stateville prison. A facility reserved for lllinois' most violent, desperate, and incorrigible felons.

Yoder says that a prison psychiatrist began calling him to his office and threatening to commit him to the Chester Mental Health Center (CMHC) upon his release following his challenging of his situation through legal channels.

On his release date, he was taken to the CMHC, where he is currently being held.

Numerous attempts to challenge his involuntary commitment have been thwarted by the appointment of biased public defenders and by the declaration by the court of his unfitness to conduct his own defense, he says in his memorandum.

Through vigorous writing campaigns, Yoder secured the assistance of David Oaks of Support Coalition International, a mental health advocacy group representing disaffected survivors or psychiatric treatments.

He also secured coverage of his plight on Fox News in 1999 and in regional newspapers.

Yoder's latest bid to have his committal overturned depends, he says, on securing credible witnesses to examine and report on His mental condition.

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