DEFENDANT #16: DR. MICHAEL BARSOM (The Vernon Patterson Dossier)

 

Role in People v. Michael Taylor (XNEGA111132)
As the Director of Metropolitan State Hospital (MSH) — the largest forensic psychiatric facility under the California Department of State Hospitals — Dr. Michael Barsom is directly responsible for the admission, continued detainment, and treatment oversight of Mr. Michael Taylor following his unlawful referral under Penal Code § 1370. Operating under the authority of DSH Director Stephanie Clendenin, Barsom failed to prevent, investigate, or rectify a commitment marred by jurisdictional defects, missing court orders, and direct constitutional objections.


Summary of Involvement
Dr. Michael Barsom serves as the on-site gatekeeper of admissions and treatment at Metropolitan State Hospital, where Mr. Taylor was committed without a valid judicial basis. The underlying commitment was based on:

• A § 730 psychiatric evaluation initiated without a valid court order;
• A sealed order never served or entered into the public or defense record;
• An ex parte and contested § 1368 incompetency suspension, carried out in the defendant’s absence;
• Procedural violations of Faretta rights, Marsden requests, and denial of confrontation rights.

Despite this defective chain of custody, Dr. Barsom’s administration accepted the commitment and treated Mr. Taylor as a lawfully confined individual, enabling a period of unlawful psychiatric detainment and attempted involuntary medication.

The responsibility for vetting legal sufficiency prior to accepting forensic admissions does not rest solely with Sacramento or Clendenin — it is also incumbent upon the Director of the admitting facility to ensure that all patients committed under criminal authority are lawfully placed, and that any due process red flags are escalated, not ignored.

Dr. Barsom’s complicity lies in his failure to verify the legal integrity of the documents accompanying Mr. Taylor’s transfer, especially after repeated objections by the defendant. Further, MSH staff under Barsom’s command attempted forced medication based on a report by Dr. Phani Tumu, despite that report itself acknowledging concerns about constitutional violations and fitness to evaluate. These actions make Barsom not merely a bureaucratic accessory, but an active institutional executor of unlawful imprisonment under the appearance of psychiatric care.


Why He Is Defendant #16 in the Dossier

• Accepted Mr. Taylor’s admission without lawful judicial authorization, enabling a constitutional violation to materialize into physical captivity.
• Failed to flag or escalate concerns over sealed or missing commitment documents, even after notice of legal defects.
• As on-site director, bears personal administrative accountability for the wrongful detainment and attempted drugging of a defendant who should never have been there.
• Functioned as the hands of the State’s unlawful seizure, transforming paperwork fraud into bodily restraint.

> “Dr. Barsom may not have forged the order, but he opened the gates. In the shadow of Metropolitan’s walls, he accepted a man condemned by silence — and treated that silence as law.”