MCFP Springfield: Medical Center for Federal Prisoners

By Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., and Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA

MCFP Springfield at a glance

MCFP Springfield is the Bureau of Prisons’ hospital: an administrative-security federal prison for men at 1900 W. Sunshine Street in Springfield, Missouri, and the only Bureau institution in Missouri. It is the only facility on the Bureau’s roster designated MCFP, Medical Center for Federal Prisoners; the other six of the seven medical referral centers in the federal system are Federal Medical Centers.

Official name	U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners, Springfield
BOP code	SPG
Security level	Administrative; men
Population	1,099 (as of September 2026)
Visiting	Saturday, Sunday, and federal holidays, 8:15 a.m.–3:00 p.m. · bedside visits any day, by arrangement
Inmate mail	Inmate Name & Register Number · U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners · P.O. Box 4000 · Springfield, MO 65801
Send money	Lockbox · Western Union (code city FBOP, DC) · MoneyGram (receive code 7932)
Phone	417-862-7041 · Fax 417-837-1717
Street address	1900 W. Sunshine Street, Springfield, MO 65807 · Greene County
Judicial district	Western District of Missouri
BOP region	North Central
Designated capacity	1,137
Housing	22 housing units in 32 buildings
Special Housing Unit	Yes
Medical care level	Levels 3 and 4 · see medical care
Mental health care level	Level 4
RDAP	Yes · only for men who also have a medical housing need
UNICOR	No
Camp	None

At MCFP Springfield, two things happen at a scale they happen nowhere else: the sickest men in federal custody are sent here for care no ordinary prison can give, and men who have never been convicted of anything are held here under court order while psychologists decide whether they are competent to stand trial. It is in the Bureau’s North Central Region, and the 2024 PREA audit records that it also holds people for the U.S. Marshals Service, ICE, and a state agency.

Is MCFP Springfield a hospital or a prison?

MCFP Springfield is both a hospital and a prison, and the Bureau’s paperwork says so in two registers. The visiting supplement calls it “an administrative institution.” The handbook given to new arrivals states its purpose as providing “necessary medical, dental, and mental health services to inmates by professional staff, consistent with acceptable community standards.” The building has a surgical suite on the fourth floor of 1-Building and a dialysis unit under 3-Building, and a control center that announces closed quarters and flashes a blue light in the tunnels.

Three things are worth settling first.

• It is an MCFP, not an FMC. The Bureau’s roster types six medical referral centers as FMC — Butner, Carswell, Devens, Fort Worth, Lexington, and Rochester — and types this one MCFP. “FMC Springfield” is not an official name.
• There is no other federal prison in Missouri. Filter the Bureau’s roster on Missouri and one institution comes back. If a family member is in a Missouri Department of Corrections facility or a county jail, the federal Inmate Locator will not find them and none of the rules on this page apply.
• Locally it is called “the Fed Med.” Springfield physicians have used the name for decades, but it is not a Bureau term and appears on no form.

It was built as a hospital first. A Springfield orthopedic surgeon writing its history in Missouri Medicine in 2020 records that the city bid for the facility in October 1929, learned it had won on February 1, 1930, against eleven other communities, and saw construction finish in March 1933 — on completion, the largest general hospital in Missouri.

What is the security level at MCFP Springfield?

MCFP Springfield’s security level is administrative. That is not a point on the low-medium-high scale; it is the Bureau’s category for institutions with a special mission that take people of every security level. The December 2024 PREA audit records the custody levels held here as “Community, In, Maximum, Out” — all four at once, in one building. A man who would be at a camp if he were healthy and a man who would be in a penitentiary if he were well can be on the same ward.

So the usual arithmetic does not decide who comes here. Everywhere else a security point score and any Public Safety Factor set the institution; here the deciding document is a medical referral and the deciding official sits in Washington rather than Grand Prairie.

How a medical designation is actually made

Program Statement 5100.08 takes this class of case away from the Designation and Sentence Computation Center entirely: “Medical designations and transfers are approved by the Central Office Medical Designator, Office of Medical Designations and Transportation (OMDT),” and “[o]nly the OMDT will make designations for study cases or for cases requiring medical or psychiatric evaluation or treatment.”

The form that starts it is the BP-A0770, and the policy is exact about who fills it in: “The HSA, with input from the Clinical Director and other providers involved with the inmate’s care … is responsible for completing the BP-770. The referring institution Warden must review the BP-770 and authorize the request for transfer.” No one outside the sending prison can put it in motion — not a family, not a judge, not defense counsel. What outside help changes is what the sending Clinical Director is looking at when the decision is made, because the form is written there or not at all.

The urgency box on the form decides the journey. An emergency transfer requires “immediate, direct transportation”; a routine or urgent one must reach the medical center “typically within two to three weeks of designation,” and “[h]oldover housing at a county jail or Bureau general population institution is not permissible” on the way. A routine transfer “may travel by any available means” — the airlift, which can take months. And a written objection to a psychiatric transfer, the patient’s or counsel’s, makes “the provisions of 18 U.S.C. § 4245” potentially applicable and obliges staff to “suspend transfer action in such cases and refer the matter to their Regional Counsel for review.”

Going back, and the parent-facility rule

Most medical designations are temporary, and one sentence in PS 5100.08 decides the return: “Medical cases are normally returned to their parent facility unless the DSCC approves a change in the parent facility based on clinical justification provided prior to redesignation by the Medical Designator.” The operative words are prior to redesignation: the case for staying — a condition that will not stabilize, a dialysis schedule only four federal institutions run — has to be documented on clinical grounds while the referral is still moving. Raised after arrival, it is an ordinary transfer request in an ordinary queue.

What medical care does MCFP Springfield provide?

MCFP Springfield provides inpatient hospital care, surgery, dialysis, long-term nursing care, inpatient psychiatric treatment, and end-of-life care, the range the Bureau’s patient care rules, Program Statement 6031.06, assign to a medical referral center and authorize nowhere else. Two lines carry the point: “Inpatient units (Nursing Care Centers) are authorized only at MRCs,” and “Except for MRCs, institutions will not have clinicians on site 24 hours.”

PS 6031.06 (2026) grades every person and every institution on four care levels, and Springfield is at the top of the scale: “Care Level 4 institutions are the Bureau’s MRC. Inmates housed at MRCs may require extensive medical and nursing care,” including 24-hour nursing and help “with activities of daily living such as feeding, toileting, and dressing.”

The Bureau’s 2024 Institution Care Levels for Medical Assignment chart prints Springfield’s row as “3, 4”; the same document’s list of institutions by care level places Springfield under Care Level 4 and nowhere else. The undated mental-health chart released with it gives Springfield mental health Care Level 4, the inpatient psychiatric level. Both charts are more than two years old, and because PS 6031.06 has the Health Services Division assign institution levels, a level can change without a new public chart.

One cadence in the same policy turns a vague worry into a checkable date: “Medical Care Level 4 inmates. Must be seen by an APP or physician for CCC follow-up every three months, or more often as clinically indicated.” And, in case anyone argues the point for a man on a ward, “Inpatient inmates at MRCs are not excluded from CCC enrollment.” A relative who has not been seen in six months is not unlucky.

The buildings, and what is in each one

Springfield is not laid out like a prison, and which building a man is in tells you more than his custody level. The PREA audit counts 32 buildings and 22 housing units.

Building	What is in it
1-Building	Administration, X-ray, and the Visiting Room on the ground floor; medical clinics above; the Medical Unit on the third floor; the surgical area and its housing unit on the fourth; laboratory and pharmacy in the basement
3-Building	A Chronic Medical Unit on the first floor; an Acute Medical Care Unit and Respiratory Therapy Unit on the second; Dental, Medical Records, Physical Therapy, and Dialysis in the basement
10-Building	10A and 10 South are the Mental Health Treatment Unit, taking patients for short- and long-term inpatient care. 10-North is the Mental Health Evaluation Unit, “which includes both unsentenced Forensic cases and sentenced Diagnostic and Observation cases”

That handbook dates from 2017 and is the only published description of the campus, so confirm a unit assignment with the unit team; the PREA audit is the better census. On December 17, 2024, the institution held 1,098 men, of whom 232 had a physical disability and 506 a cognitive or functional disability — nearly two-thirds of the population between them — with 19 blind or low-vision, 59 deaf or hard of hearing, and 267 limited English proficient. The audit also counted the restrictive housing: 26 cells in the Special Housing Unit, 25 medical, 161 mental health, and 38 in a semi-locked step-down unit.

Dialysis, prosthetics, and what is made on site

For a man on hemodialysis, this address is one of four in the country. The Inspector General, inspecting a different medical center in December 2024, put the whole list in a sentence: “the BOP has only four institutions with a dialysis unit: FMC Devens, FMC Butner, FMC Carswell, and U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners Springfield.” Springfield’s unit is in the basement of 3-Building beside Physical Therapy.

The prosthetics laboratory has no counterpart anywhere in the Bureau. In an August 2025 press release, the Bureau describes it as “the only prosthetics lab of its kind within the federal prison system,” operating “for over two decades” and saving “U.S. taxpayers $1.5 to $2 million annually” by fabricating and repairing devices in-house. CAPT Justin Feola is named as its sole clinician, leading “a team of trained inmate workers” and consulting by telemedicine with men at other institutions, “assessing prosthetic needs and guiding the fabrication or modification process remotely.” The device your relative uses at a prison in another state may have been made in the basement of 8-Building.

Sick call, pill line, and the $2 copay

Sick call for the work cadre runs in the 1-2 clinic from 7:00 to 7:30 a.m. on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, with a $2.00 copay; men on the hospital units write to their provider or raise it with the ward nurse instead. Everyone is assigned “a Patient Care Provider team consisting of a physician, a mid-level practitioner, and a nurse,” and people in segregation, who cannot sign up, are covered because “a medical staff member tours each such housing unit at least once every day.”

The copay rule has an exception written for this kind of institution and it is easy to miss. It “applies to anyone in an institution under the Bureau’s jurisdiction … except inmates in inpatient status at a Medical Referral Center (MRC). All inmates in outpatient status at the MRCs and inmates assigned to the General Population at these facilities are subject to co-pay fees.” An inpatient here pays nothing, and no one pays for staff-referred care, emergencies, mental health care, or chronic care clinics. One line marks the boundary between the hospital and the rest of the institution: “Inmates in 10-building and Long Term Care units are not allowed to purchase or carry over the counter medications.”

The timetable for a first medical examination shows how the institution sorts people: general population arrivals within 14 days; “Behavioral Health D&O, Forensic and Residential Services inmates … within 7 days of admission”; and “Long Term Care and Behavioral Health inpatient inmates … within 24 hours of admission.” See our guide to medical care in federal prison.

There is one oversight channel here that exists at almost no other federal prison. The handbook states that “USMCFP Springfield is accredited by the Joint Commission for Long Term Care, Ambulatory Care, and Behavioral Health Care,” and prints the complaint route — Office of Quality Monitoring, The Joint Commission, One Renaissance Boulevard, Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois 60181, telephone 1-800-994-6610 — for a concern about the quality or safety of care that “cannot be resolved through the established BOP processes.” Two cautions: the handbook dates from 2017, and the accreditation box on the December 2024 PREA audit is ticked for the American Correctional Association only. Confirm it is current before relying on it.

Advance directives, and who witnesses one here

Program Statement 6031.06 draws a distinction few people outside the system know about. A do-not-resuscitate order “will only be invoked and honored when an inmate is housed at a Care Level 4 facility (i.e., MRCs) or Care Level 3 facilities having a long-term care or inpatient mission,” and an advance directive is treated the same way. At a general population institution, “[e]mergency resuscitative measures must always be performed on an inmate who suffers cardiopulmonary arrest.” A living will signed years before prison does nothing at an ordinary FCI. Here it operates.

Springfield’s handbook is unusual in setting out how to execute one. It devotes an appendix to the subject, cites Cruzan by name, and gives the local mechanics: “At the U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners, your Health Care Directive and/or Durable Power of Attorney will be witnessed by two staff members. The Durable Power of Attorney must be signed in front of, and notarized by a notary of the public. The Health Care Directive does not require notarization.” A Social Worker enacts it, the named agent “may not be an incarcerated individual,” and on artificial nutrition and hydration the handbook is unambiguous: “A clear and specific request in your Advance Directive shall be honored.” If your relative is on a nursing unit here and has an executed directive at home, get it to the Social Work Department and ask for written confirmation that it is in the chart.

Who is held here under the federal commitment statutes?

MCFP Springfield holds people committed under chapter 313 of title 18, sections 4241 to 4248, which governs defendants and prisoners with mental disease or defect, and much of what happens in 10-Building has no connection to any sentence. Springfield is one of the few places federal courts send them. The Mental Health Evaluation Unit in 10-Building holds, in the institution’s own words, “both unsentenced Forensic cases and sentenced Diagnostic and Observation cases.” Some of those men have never been convicted of anything. Some have finished their sentences and are still here.

For those men the ordinary vocabulary of federal prison does not apply: no release date, no good conduct time, no halfway house review. There is a court order, a periodic report, and a burden of proof.

Competency and restoration under § 4241

Under § 4241, a court that finds a defendant incompetent by a preponderance must commit him to the custody of the Attorney General, who “shall hospitalize the defendant for treatment in a suitable facility” for “a reasonable period of time, not to exceed four months,” to determine whether there is a substantial probability he will become competent — then for a further reasonable period if that probability exists. Four months is a ceiling on the first stage, not a promise about the total. If his condition does not improve, § 4241(d) routes him on to §§ 4246 and 4248.

One statutory phrase explains the geography of who arrives here: “Unless impracticable, the psychiatric or psychological examination shall be conducted in the suitable facility closest to the court.” PS 5100.08 says the same from the Bureau’s side, directing the Medical Designator to place a study case “in the most suitable facility compatible with the offender’s security and custody needs, closest to the court.” Section 4247(b) caps the examination at 30 days under §§ 4241, 4244, and 4245 and 45 days under §§ 4242, 4243, 4246, and 4248. Those caps are on the examination, not the confinement, and the gap between the two is where most of the delay lives.

Sell v. United States was decided on facts from this building

The leading Supreme Court decision on forcibly medicating a defendant to make him fit for trial arose here. Charles Sell, a Missouri dentist charged with fraud and later with attempting to murder an FBI agent and a witness, was sent to Springfield in 1999: “The Magistrate sent Sell to the United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners (Medical Center) at Springfield, Missouri, for examination.” He was found incompetent and hospitalized here. “Two months later, Medical Center staff recommended that Sell take antipsychotic medication. Sell refused to do so. The staff sought permission to administer the medication against Sell’s will. That effort is the subject of the present proceedings.”

What the Court held is narrower than it is usually reported to be: “the Constitution permits the Government involuntarily to administer antipsychotic drugs to a mentally ill defendant facing serious criminal charges in order to render that defendant competent to stand trial, but only if the treatment is medically appropriate, is substantially unlikely to have side effects that may undermine the fairness of the trial, and, taking account of less intrusive alternatives, is necessary significantly to further important governmental trial-related interests.” Sell v. United States, 539 U.S. 166 (2003). The Court vacated the Eighth Circuit’s judgment because the lower courts had not made those findings — not because Sell could never be medicated.

Two parts of the opinion do the most work, and both are procedural. A court asked to authorize medication for trial competence should ordinarily determine first whether the government seeks, or has sought, permission on the separate ground that the person is dangerous to himself or others, “and if not, why not,” because those grounds are “more objective and manageable.” And the Court faulted the lower courts for ignoring how long Sell had already been confined at the Medical Center, and that refusing medication might extend that confinement.

The Bureau’s own medication hearing

Most involuntary medication in the Bureau never reaches a judge. It runs through an administrative hearing under 28 C.F.R. § 549.46, which gives more procedure than families expect — on a clock measured in hours, which is why it is so often wasted.

• No medication before the hearing, except in a psychiatric emergency.
• Twenty-four hours’ advance written notice of the date, time, place, and purpose, “including an explanation of the reasons for the psychiatric medication proposal.”
• The right to appear, present evidence, have a staff representative, and request witnesses. If the person does not ask for one, or asks for one unqualified or unavailable, “the institution mental health division administrator must appoint a qualified staff representative.”
• The hearing “is to be conducted by a psychiatrist other than the attending psychiatrist, and who is not currently involved in the diagnosis or treatment of the inmate.”
• The finding must be that, because of the mental illness, the person “is dangerous to self or others, poses a serious threat of damage to property affecting the security or orderly running of the institution, or is gravely disabled (manifested by extreme deterioration in personal functioning).”
• A written decision, appealable to the mental health division administrator. The appeal “may be handwritten” and must be filed within 24 hours of receiving the report, and medication “must not be administered before the administrator issues a decision on the appeal, unless an exception exists as provided in paragraph (b) of this section.” Read that last clause before relying on the appeal as a stay: paragraph (b) lets the Bureau medicate anyway in a psychiatric emergency, and pursuant to a federal court order to restore competency to stand trial — which is a substantial part of what this institution does.

Two more provisions matter in advance. If a person consents after an involuntary hearing and later withdraws consent, a full follow-up hearing must be held before involuntary administration resumes. And the regulation reserves the Sell question to the courts in terms: “Only a Federal court of competent jurisdiction may order the involuntary administration of psychiatric medication for the sole purpose of restoring a person’s competency to stand trial.” If the stated reason is trial competence and no judge has ordered it, the Bureau’s own rule is being broken.

Treatment over objection during a sentence: § 4245

Section 4245 is the provision most people have never heard of, and the one the Bureau’s transfer policy points at. It applies where a sentenced person “objects either in writing or through his attorney to being transferred to a suitable facility for care or treatment.” The objection does not settle the question; it changes who answers it. A government attorney, at the request of the facility director, may move for a hearing in the district where the facility sits, and filing the motion “shall stay the transfer of the person pending completion of procedures contained in this section.”

The government must then prove, by a preponderance, that the person “is presently suffering from a mental disease or defect for the treatment of which he is in need of custody for care or treatment in a suitable facility.” Hospitalization continues “until he is no longer in need of such custody … or until the expiration of the sentence of imprisonment, whichever occurs earlier.” The sentence is the outer wall: commitment under this section ends with it, however ill the patient still is. Section 4247(d) supplies counsel and the rights to testify, to present evidence, to subpoena, and to cross-examine. And one clause is routinely left on the table: “upon the request of the defendant an additional examiner may be selected by the defendant.”

Commitment after the sentence ends: § 4246

Section 4246 does what no other federal statute does: it holds a person in custody after the sentence is over, indefinitely, on a civil finding. It starts with a certificate from the facility director — here, Springfield — that a person whose sentence is about to expire, who is committed under § 4241(d), or whose charges were dismissed solely because of his mental condition, “is presently suffering from a mental disease or defect as a result of which his release would create a substantial risk of bodily injury to another person or serious damage to property of another, and that suitable arrangements for State custody and care of the person are not available.” It is filed in the district of confinement — for everyone here, the Western District of Missouri — and filing it “shall stay the release of the person.” The burden is clear and convincing evidence.

The United States Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Missouri says who brings that case, listing “Litigation at the United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners” among six major areas of its Civil Division’s work: “The Civil Division, in conjunction with legal staff at the USMCFP, is also responsible for initiating and litigating prisoner mental health commitments under 18 U.S.C. §§ 4245 and 4246.” Springfield’s handbook records the other side: the Federal Public Defender “represent[s] inmates when the government has filed a motion pursuant to Title 18, United States Code Section 4245 or 4246, when appointed by the Court.”

The Eighth Circuit has addressed how that burden is met in cases from this institution.

• The evidence is a report from a body the institution convenes. In United States v. Cabines, No. 20-1136 (8th Cir. Aug. 11, 2020) — a man found incompetent in the Southern District of New York and “transferred to the United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners (MCFP) in Springfield, Missouri, for further evaluation” — “a MCFP Risk Assessment Panel filed a report … recommending civil commitment,” and the commitment was affirmed on “the unanimous and unrefuted medical opinions of the MCFP mental health professionals.”
• That word unrefuted is the case. The district court in Cabines “granted Cabines’s motion for evaluation by an independent psychological examiner,” who agreed with the panel. An independent examiner is available; whether one is obtained, and what they are given, is the variable defense counsel controls.
• Violence is not required. United States v. Payne, 623 F. App’x 829 (8th Cir. 2015), also turned on “a Risk Assessment Panel comprised of mental health professionals at the United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri”; overt acts of violence are not necessary to establish dangerousness, and lack of insight, refusal of medication, and the absence of a release plan carried the finding.
• The place to attack the underlying custody is not Missouri. In United States v. Gregos-Gutierrez, No. 22-2095 (8th Cir. Nov. 6, 2023), a man argued his § 4241(d) commitment had run past the statutory limits, so he was not lawfully in custody when the petition was filed here. Bound by United States v. Ryan, 52 F.4th 719 (8th Cir. 2022) — § 4246(a)’s custody requirement is not jurisdictional and can be waived — the court held that such a challenge belongs in the court that ordered the custody; raised first in Missouri, it was waived.

Getting out, and the 180-day clock

Three doors, unequally used. The facility can certify that release “would no longer create a substantial risk.” The court can order conditional discharge under § 4246(e)(2) on “a prescribed regimen of medical, psychiatric, or psychological care or treatment” — the realistic outcome in most cases, and one that turns on whether somebody built a regimen for a judge to approve. And under § 4247(h), counsel or a legal guardian may move for a discharge hearing “at any time during such person’s commitment,” subject to one limit: “no such motion may be filed within one hundred and eighty days of a court determination that the person should continue to be committed.” Section 4247(g) preserves habeas corpus outright.

A recent decision here shows how conditional release ends. In United States v. Dozier, No. 6:20-cv-03314-MDH (W.D. Mo.), the court revoked a conditional release under § 4246(f) on March 12, 2026, on findings that the man had breached a protective order. Denying his six pro se motions on May 12, 2026, it held that a § 4246 case is governed by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 72(b) rather than Rule 52 — objections must be specific, filed within 14 days, and arguments left out of them are not preserved — and that “in an 18 U.S.C. § 4246 proceeding, discharge from commitment is evaluated under the framework of the statute and not under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 12(b)’s pleading standards.”

Section 4247(e) requires annual reports to the committing court “concerning the mental condition of the person and containing recommendations concerning the need for his continued commitment.” The Eighth Circuit has twice reminded the government of continuing obligations in Springfield cases: that the Attorney General “is under a continuing obligation to exert reasonable efforts to place” the person in a suitable state facility, and, in Payne, that it “must act as a medical custodian, not a punitive one.” If no one files a motion, the court reviews the reports on the papers, and the commitment continues.

How does MCFP Springfield affect a compassionate release motion?

A designation here makes one compassionate release provision harder to satisfy and hands you the evidence to meet it. Under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A), a person may go to the sentencing court after exhausting administrative appeals or 30 days after the warden receives the request for a sentence reduction. The governing policy statement is USSG § 1B1.13, and the medical subsection written for facts like these is § 1B1.13(b)(1)(C): “a medical condition that requires long-term or specialized medical care that is not being provided and without which the defendant is at risk of serious deterioration in health or death.”

Every word of that turns on care not being provided. A man designated here is at the top of the Bureau’s medical scale, in a building with a surgical suite, a dialysis unit, and a pharmacy, and the government will say that specialized care is what he is receiving. A motion out of Springfield that does not anticipate that answer will not survive the response.

What answers it is dates: the treatment ordered, by whom and when; the date it was due, measured against the Bureau’s own Care Level 4 standard of a clinician every three months, inpatients included; the date it happened or the record showing it did not; and the clinical consequence of the gap. The Joint Commission complaint channel described above leaves a paper trail outside the Bureau, and the 267 limited-English-proficient men counted on one day in December 2024 are a reminder that a missing interpreter is as much a barrier to care as a missing specialist.

Who are the notable inmates at MCFP Springfield?

As of September 2026, the Bureau’s Inmate Locator shows Jose Padilla, Noshir S. Gowadia, Anthony George Battle, and Marvin Charles Gabrion II held here. Published lists for this institution are worse than most: a medical center’s population turns over as health changes, and the best-known names left decades ago.

Name	Status	Case
Jose Padilla	Held here. Register 20796-424; projected release November 12, 2026	Convicted in the Southern District of Florida on terrorism conspiracy and material support charges; resentenced 2017
Noshir S. Gowadia	Held here. Register 95518-022; projected release October 28, 2028	Engineer who worked on the B-2 bomber. The Justice Department’s export-enforcement record states that a judge in the District of Hawaii sentenced him to 32 years on January 24, 2011, for transferring classified national defense information relating to China
Anthony George Battle	Held here. Register 11451-056; projected release LIFE	Convicted March 20, 1995, of the murder of Correctional Officer D’Antonio Washington at USP Atlanta and sentenced to death. Commuted December 23, 2024
Marvin Charles Gabrion II	Held here. Register 09184-055; projected release LIFE	Convicted in the Western District of Michigan of the 1997 kidnapping and murder of Rachel Timmerman, and sentenced to death. Commuted December 23, 2024
Wesley Coonce Jr. and Charles Hall	Former. Both now at USP Terre Haute, LIFE	Sentenced to death in June 2014 for the January 2010 murder of a fellow prisoner here; commuted December 23, 2024

The Bureau’s own memorial page for Officer D’Antonio Washington, killed at USP Atlanta on December 21, 1994, and “the first African American officer killed in a Federal prison,” still states that Battle “is currently confined in the Special Confinement Unit at FCC Terre Haute (USP).” The Inmate Locator places him here, and the live custody database is the newer record.

Springfield is one of only three institutions holding men whose federal death sentences were commuted on December 23, 2024: of the 37 on the published list, the Inmate Locator shows twelve at USP Florence ADMAX, twenty-two at USP Terre Haute, one in transit, and two — Battle and Gabrion — here.

The standing list needs pruning. Mohammad El-Mezain, routinely named as a current prisoner here, was released from FCI Oakdale II on September 17, 2021. John Gotti, Joseph Bonanno, Robert Stroud, and Larry Flynt belong to earlier decades of the institution’s published history. And Omar Abdel-Rahman, who appears on several lists as having died at Springfield, died in February 2017 at the Bureau’s medical center in Butner, North Carolina.

How do I find someone at MCFP Springfield?

Use the Bureau’s free public Inmate Locator and search by the eight-digit register number if you have it, because the locator matches the committed name on the judgment rather than a name in daily use. For someone held here the screen reads “Located at: Springfield MCFP”; the code SPG sits only in the record behind it. A person committed under §§ 4241 to 4246 shows without a meaningful release date, because there is no sentence to compute; that is not a data error.

How do I write to someone at MCFP Springfield?

Letters to someone at MCFP Springfield go to P.O. Box 4000, not to Sunshine Street; parcels sent by anything other than the Postal Service go to the warehouse at the street address. Put the committed name and register number on the first line.

Letters and legal mail	Non-USPS parcels (UPS, FedEx)
Inmate Name & Register Number U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners P.O. Box 4000 Springfield, MO 65801	Inmate Name & Register Number MCFP Springfield Federal Medical Center 1900 W. Sunshine St. Springfield, MO 65807

Under the Bureau’s correspondence rules, general correspondence is opened, inspected, and may be read. Legal mail is opened in front of the addressee, and not read, only if it is marked as the Bureau’s special-mail rules require; unmarked, an attorney’s letter is ordinary mail. See attorney-client communication in the Bureau of Prisons. Never enclose money; funds sent in a letter are rejected and returned.

How do I send money to someone at MCFP Springfield?

Money for someone at MCFP Springfield goes to the Bureau’s national lockbox in Iowa or through one of two wire services, never to Springfield, and all three routes need the committed name and eight-digit register number on the instrument and the envelope. The visiting supplement states the other half: “Visitors may not leave money in the Visiting Room or Front Entrance for credit to an inmate’s account.”

Route	Where it goes	Timing
Postal money order	Federal Bureau of Prisons Inmate Register Number Inmate Name Post Office Box 474701 Des Moines, Iowa 50947-0001	Funds available the next day. The supplement recommends a postal money order “because personal checks will be held for fifteen (15) days before they will be credited”
Western Union Quick Collect	Code city FBOP, DC	Two to four hours on bop.gov, two under PS 4500.13, if sent 7:00 a.m.–9:00 p.m. Eastern; otherwise by 7:00 a.m. next day
MoneyGram	Receive code 7932, company name Federal Bureau of Prisons, Washington, DC	As for Western Union

What are the visiting hours at MCFP Springfield?

Visiting at MCFP Springfield runs on Saturdays, Sundays, and all recognized federal holidays, 8:15 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., under institution supplement SPG-5267.09h, dated January 13, 2025, which replaced the December 2022 version. Two details in the same paragraph decide whether a journey is wasted: “No in-processing of visitors will occur after 2:30 p.m,” and “In-processing of visitors will temporarily halt at 9:30 a.m. on weekends and holidays until the 10:00 a.m. count clears.” Arrive at 9:35 and you wait in the lobby. Arrive at 2:35 and you are turned away.

The supplement is the only published source of hours. Note the supplement’s own inconsistencies: the cover is numbered SPG-5267.09h while every page footer reads SPG-5267.09g, and the attachment written for visitors says “[v]isits on weekdays count as one (1) point” three sentences after stating that “[t]he Visiting Room at the U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners is closed on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.” Both are in the same document, and it does not say which controls. Do not plan a weekday visit on it; call 417-862-7041 first.

Who can visit, and the eight-point month

• Visits are rationed by points. Each person is “limited to, visits, which total eight (8) points per month.” A weekend or holiday visit costs two — four visiting days a month — but Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s are free: “There will be no charged points for these three holidays.”
• Six visitors at a time, with a rule most institutions do not have: “there can be no more than four (4) adults or four (4) children at one time.” Four adults and two children is allowed; five adults and one child is not. More than six needs a written request a week ahead, routed through the Counselor and Unit Manager to the Captain.
• The list can be changed once a month, and removal is irreversible: “Once a visitor is removed, it will be permanent.” Take that literally before asking for anyone to be taken off in anger.

Attorney visits carry a trap. “[L]egal visits will ordinarily occur on non-visiting days during regular visiting hours and should be scheduled at least one (1) week in advance,” through the unit team. An attorney who turns up during weekend visiting is supervised by the Visiting Room Officer, and the supplement is blunt: “no supplies or paperwork will be allowed, and Attorneys should be notified that there is no guaranteed expectation of privacy, due to other social visits occurring at the same time.” Documents travel by mail, because “[n]o legal documents will be brought through the Shakedown Room.”

Bedside visits and hospital visits

• Bedside visits inside the institution. Prearranged by the unit team, reviewed by the Captain, approved by the Warden on a written memorandum, and schedulable on any day of the week, not only weekends. The slots are one hour between 9:00 and 10:30 a.m. or one hour between 1:00 and 3:00 p.m. “Once a visitor departs the institution, they are not to return on that same day.” Scheduling takes account of medication and any limits the physician sets.
• Visits to a man admitted to a community hospital. Immediate family only, ordinarily no one under sixteen, and approved by the Warden. Family must come to the institution first to complete a notification form, which they carry to the officer in charge at the hospital, and “[w]ithout verbal notification from the Lieutenant, the visit will not take place.” Hours follow the hospital’s, and “[h]ospital visits will not exceed two (2) hours in length on any approved visiting day.”

What visitors can wear and bring

Skirts and dresses may be no more than two inches above the knee, and nothing skin-tight. Prohibited: hooded shirts and coats, sleeveless shirts, see-through clothing, tube and tank tops, shorts, jogging suits, and open-toed shoes. Color matters as much as cut — no orange, no camouflage except for active-duty military, and no khaki, which is what the men here wear — and no hats, non-prescription sunglasses, or watches of any kind. Visitors may carry a clear plastic purse no larger than eight inches square holding a comb, up to $40 per adult, hygiene items, and identification; billfolds stay in the car, and a clear bag is provided at the lobby in place of a diaper bag.

Screening is stricter here on one point: “All visitors are required to clear the walk-through metal detector without exception.” Anyone with a medical device that cannot be removed “must have supporting documentation from a physician” — bring the letter, not just the card. A Warden’s letter attached to the supplement also asks visitors to postpone a visit for a fever over 100 degrees, an infectious eye or skin disease, a cold or flu, diarrhea, or vomiting. See searches, shakedowns, and contraband, federal prison visitation, and the Bureau’s visiting regulations.

Getting there

The institution is at the corner of West Sunshine Street and Kansas Expressway. The supplement’s directions: from U.S. Highway 60, exit at the Kansas Expressway interchange and travel north about three miles; I-44 is about six miles north on the same road, so visitors arriving there travel south.

How do phone calls and email work at MCFP Springfield?

Calls from MCFP Springfield go outward only: you cannot call in, and the institution will not put a message through to a ward. Numbers must be on an approved list of thirty, and a single call should generally not exceed 15 minutes. Under the Bureau’s telephone regulations, Program Statement 5264.09, issued September 3, 2026, the monthly allowance is 510 minutes: 300 free to anyone eligible for First Step Act telephone incentives, and 210 more that anyone who uses up the 300 may buy, with no November or December supplement. Springfield adds a thirty-minute interval between calls, which the program statement now requires nationally. Going beyond the allowance, or calling collect, needs unit staff to prepare a memorandum for the Warden’s signature.

Phone hours run from 6:00 a.m. to 11:30 p.m., with a restriction that catches families trying to call around a working day: “All inmate telephones, with the exception of one per housing unit, will not be operational 7:30 a.m. – 10:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. (excluding weekends and holidays).” On a weekday, most of the phones on a unit are dead for six and a half hours. See our guide to federal inmate phone calls.

Unmonitored attorney calls are available, on a local test the handbook states in one sentence: “The inmate must demonstrate to staff he has an imminent court deadline in order to receive an attorney phone call.” That is a higher bar than many institutions apply, so bring the deadline — a scheduling order, a filing date — not a general request to speak to counsel.

Email runs on TRULINCS, reached by families through CorrLinks, at five cents a minute. Someone with no TRULINCS access — which here can mean a locked mental health unit — submits a paper contact form through a unit team member, entered within three working days. Messages with an attorney are not privileged. See CorrLinks and TRULINCS.

What can people buy at the MCFP Springfield commissary?

The monthly commissary spending limit at MCFP Springfield is $460, set nationally by the Bureau’s trust fund rules, Program Statement 4500.13, issued May 7, 2026, which record the increase from $360 and add $50 for the November–December holiday period, for no more than one validation period. Stamps and over-the-counter medication do not count against it; telephone credit does, because Program Statement 4500.13 does not list it among the only exclusions.

Springfield’s own handbook says something different: “The spending limitation at this institution is equal to the national established maximum which is currently $360.00 per month.” The handbook dates from 2017, and that figure was overtaken in May 2026; the program statement controls. The institution’s order form for January to March 2025 carries no spending limit at all — it prints per-category possession limits only, from twelve cans of beverage and ten meat items down to one tub of ice cream.

Shopping here does not work the way it works at a standard institution, and the difference is one phrase: an identification card is required for every transaction, “including ward delivery sales.” Commissary comes to the ward for men who cannot walk to it, in a building where many cannot, and order forms are handed out by the ward officer. The over-the-counter medication on the form is not available to men on 10-Building or the long-term care units, who go through Health Services instead. Our page on the federal prison commissary covers the national rules.

What programs are available at MCFP Springfield?

MCFP Springfield offers fewer programs than a comparable institution, rationed by medical status rather than waiting list: people on the hospital and mental health units “will need permission from their Unit Team to participate in Education programs to avoid conflicts with prescribed medical regimens.”

RDAP, and the rule that decides who gets it here

Springfield runs the Residential Drug Abuse Program, which most medical centers do not. But its own handbook sets a condition that appears in no national document: “USMCFP Springfield offers this program to inmates who meet the qualifications and have a medical housing need. Non-medical inmates who qualify for this program may be transferred to other institutions for participation.” A man cannot be designated here in order to do RDAP; he can do RDAP here because he is already here for medical reasons.

The program is the Bureau’s standard 500-hour residential course, and for people convicted of non-violent offenses, completion can mean up to a year off a sentence under 18 U.S.C. § 3621(e). One detail in the Bureau’s August 2026 First Step Act Approved Programs Guide stands out: its RDAP location list marks Springfield’s program with the symbol its key defines as a Co-occurring Disorder Program. Across all fifty RDAP locations in the Bureau, exactly three carry that marker — MCFP Springfield, the second program at FMC Lexington, and FMC Carswell. For someone with both a substance use disorder and a serious mental illness, that is a very short list. One wrinkle to know before you ask about it: the same guide’s programs-by-institution table leaves Springfield unmarked in its general Residential Drug Treatment row and marks it instead in the dual-diagnosis row. The locations list, the institution handbook, and that dual-diagnosis row all put RDAP here; the general row does not, and the Bureau has not reconciled them.

Education, apprenticeships, and the prosthetics lab

The notable apprenticeship is attached to the prosthetics laboratory: an 8,000-hour program in which participants “learn advanced techniques and prepare for a national certification exam,” and those who pass “receive credentials recognized across the prosthetics and orthotics industry.” Eight thousand hours is roughly four years of full-time work, and it is one of the few vocational tracks in the federal system that ends in a civilian license.

Psychology Services has a psychologist assigned or available to every unit and keeps “a clinician … on-call for emergency situations 24 hours a day, seven days a week.” One First Step Act program is written for this population and approved almost nowhere else: LifeSkills Laboratories, a 90-hour program “developed by Psychology Services to help individuals with serious mental health illness practice life skills.” The August 2026 guide’s own page for it names five institutions in the whole Bureau, Springfield among them; its programs-by-institution table marks four, dropping FMC Rochester, and the Bureau has not reconciled the two. Approval is not delivery either: whether a class is running is a question for the unit team. See First Step Act time credits.

What is daily life like at MCFP Springfield?

Daily life at MCFP Springfield depends on which building someone is in. A man in the work cadre has a job, a mainline meal, and a yard; a man on a nursing unit has a tray brought to him and his commissary order taken by an officer. The schedule below is the work cadre’s.

	Weekdays	Weekends and holidays
Beds made / khaki uniform	Beds by 7:30 a.m.; shirt tucked 6:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.	Beds by 10:00 a.m.
Pharmacy window	11:30 a.m.–12:15 p.m. renewals; 4:30–5:15 p.m. new prescriptions	—
Meals	6:00–7:00 a.m.; 11:00 a.m.–noon; after the 4:00 p.m. count clears	6:00–7:00 a.m.; after the 10:00 a.m. count clears; after the 4:00 p.m. count clears

Food service runs a regular menu, a Heart Healthy option, and a non-flesh option, with satellite trays to the housing areas that cannot reach the dining room. Clothing is khaki, with two exceptions that tell you what kind of institution this is: men on medical wards 3-1 and 3-2 who cannot leave the unit “will be allowed to wear pajamas while they are on the ward,” and dialysis patients may wear sweats to and from treatment. Recreation and the law library are in 14-Building, and men in segregation get law library access “via a computer set up in each locked area.”

On restraints, seclusion, and suicide watch, the handbook is candid: they are used only “when it is absolutely necessary,” in a camera cell, and “[n]o inmate will remain in seclusion, on suicide watch, or in restraints as the result of retaliation by staff, as a means of coercion, or solely because he has a history of dangerousness.” That last clause is the one to quote if it happens. See solitary confinement.

What do inspectors say about conditions at MCFP Springfield?

Inspectors have said less about MCFP Springfield than you would expect of a 1,100-bed hospital. The DOJ Office of the Inspector General has not conducted an on-site inspection of this facility, as of September 2026. It has named the institution in fourteen published products — evaluations, audits, press releases, and a staff survey — but none is an inspection of conditions here. Nor has the District of Columbia’s Corrections Information Council, which inspects institutions holding DC residents, ever been here. The only independent, on-site examination of this institution in the public record is a Prison Rape Elimination Act audit, and that audit is about sexual safety, not medical care.

The 2024 PREA audit

The PREA audit was conducted on site on December 17–19, 2024, by an independent auditor, Cynthia Swier of Corrections Consulting Services LLC, who reported on January 13, 2025. It passed: 44 standards met, one exceeded, none unmet. The standard exceeded was 115.31, employee training, because the institution trains staff annually against a standard requiring it every two years.

Two findings travel with that result. In the twelve months before the audit, the institution recorded two allegations of sexual abuse and three of sexual harassment, all inmate-on-inmate; both abuse allegations were unsubstantiated and one harassment allegation was substantiated. And the audit records a gap the institution could not close: “The facility has been unable to obtain an MOU with an outside provider to provide emotional support services to inmates for issues related to sexual abuse.” The standard was still found compliant, but a man who reports a sexual assault here has no outside victim advocate to speak to.

Deaths

People die here in numbers no other federal prison approaches, because this is where the Bureau sends people who are dying. The institution’s published history puts the annual figure at 35 to 40 as of 2020. That is the baseline against which the one federal oversight figure has to be read.

In February 2024, the Inspector General published an evaluation of inmate deaths across the Bureau covering fiscal years 2014 to 2021. Its Table 3 lists the ten institutions with the highest number, and MCFP Springfield is sixth, with nine, against a March 2018 population of 1,031. Above it are USP Atlanta (17), USP Terre Haute and USP Hazelton (14 each), USP Pollock (11), and FMC Butner (10).

The scope sentence has to travel with that number every time it is quoted: “We focused on nonnatural inmate deaths that the BOP identified as having occurred at institutions under the following categories of circumstances: suicide, homicide, accident, and unknown; we therefore did not examine inmate deaths resulting from natural causes.” Across the whole Bureau it covered 344 deaths in eight years; suicide accounted for just over half, and more than three-quarters of those categorized as accident or unknown involved drug overdoses.

So the nine at Springfield are not the hospital deaths. They are the suicides, homicides, overdoses, and unexplained deaths at an institution where a large share of the population is on a mental health unit. The same evaluation found that 46 percent of those who died by suicide Bureau-wide were in restrictive housing at the time, against about 8 percent of the Bureau’s population. Springfield had 161 mental health segregation cells at the December 2024 audit.

The litigation this institution generates

The United States Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Missouri lists work from this one prison as a standing category of its Civil Division’s caseload: “The United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoner (USMCFP), located in Springfield, Mo., is the source of a wide variety of litigation for the Civil Division. When inmates seek to challenge the confinement conditions at the prison, including their medical care, as well as the imposition of their sentences, they file habeas petitions. … USMCFP inmates frequently file Bivens actions against prison staff … as well as actions against the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act.”

Those routes do different work: a § 2241 petition in the Western District of Missouri for conditions, sentence computation, and time credit disputes, a Federal Tort Claims Act claim for injury from negligent care. Both run behind the administrative remedy program, which has a clock on every rung.

The Inspector General’s record here is criminal rather than inspectional, and it concerns staff: an officer sentenced in April 2014 for hiring someone to kill his wife’s ex-husband; two supervisors who pleaded guilty in September 2014 to dissuading a prisoner from reporting an assault by an officer; and a chaplain who pleaded guilty in February 2015 to passing messages for a man serving life. Those are prosecutions of individuals, and the most recent dates from 2015.

MCFP Springfield in the news

Recent news about MCFP Springfield centers on civil commitment, deaths in custody, and men whose federal death sentences were commuted; the oldest item is a capital case over a 2010 murder here.

• May 2026 — a judge in the Western District of Missouri revoked a conditional release under 18 U.S.C. § 4246 and, denying six post-judgment motions, set out what remains available to someone committed here: a motion by counsel 180 days after the last determination, or habeas corpus.
• March 2026 — Bureau records show the custody of Walter Kendall Myers, the former State Department analyst convicted of spying for Cuba, ending here on March 12.
• December 2025 — the Bureau announced the death of Javon R. Williams, 35, who was found unresponsive at MCFP Springfield on December 31; responding employees initiated life-saving measures, and he was pronounced deceased by EMS personnel.
• July 2025 — the Bureau announced the death of Jason Avery Mattson, 34, who was found unresponsive at MCFP Springfield on July 18, transported by EMS to a local hospital, and pronounced deceased by hospital personnel.
• December 2024 — two of the 37 men whose federal death sentences were commuted, Anthony George Battle and Marvin Charles Gabrion II, are now recorded here.
• November 2020–April 2021 — the Bureau posted 20 news releases reporting the deaths of people held at MCFP Springfield; the Bureau’s releases are listed on its press release page.
• June 2014 — Wesley Coonce Jr. and Charles Hall were sentenced to death for the murder of Victor Castro-Rodriguez, found dead in his cell here on January 26, 2010. The Justice Department recorded that Castro-Rodriguez “was targeted for murder, in part, because he intervened to help a Bureau of Prisons employee as he was being attacked by another inmate.”

Frequently asked questions about MCFP Springfield

Problems at MCFP Springfield: where we can help

The problems that recur here are not the ones that recur at an ordinary federal prison, and the institution’s own record says which they are. Nearly two-thirds of the men have a physical, cognitive, or psychiatric disability, a quarter are limited English proficient, and there are 161 mental health segregation cells. This is where federal courts send people whose liberty turns on a psychologist’s report.

• Commitment and evaluation under 18 U.S.C. §§ 4241–4246: the hearings, the reports, the independent examiner a defendant may request under § 4245 and rarely does, the § 4247(h) motion available every 180 days, and the conditional release regimen under § 4246(e)(2) that has to be built before a judge can approve it.
• Getting someone to Springfield, and staying here when the parent-facility rule would send them back — an argument that has to be made on clinical grounds before redesignation, not after; see our federal prison consulting services.
• Involuntary medication — the administrative hearing under 28 C.F.R. § 549.46, which runs on 24-hour deadlines, and the court order required when the purpose is restoring competency for trial.
• Challenges to the conviction or sentence itself, through a direct appeal or a § 2255 motion.

Elizabeth Franklin-Best, P.C. handles federal criminal defense, appeals and post-conviction matters nationwide, and advises families on Bureau of Prisons issues at institutions across the system. Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA, the firm’s Managing Director, writes its federal prison policy material; he is not counsel of record, and legal representation is provided by Elizabeth Franklin-Best. Call (843) 620-1100 or contact us to talk through a specific situation.

Sources and currency

Bureau of Prisons documents

• MCFP Springfield, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026.
• Visiting Regulations, Institution Supplement SPG-5267.09h, Federal Bureau of Prisons, MCFP Springfield, 2025. Replaced SPG-5267.09f (2022); its page footers read SPG-5267.09g.
• Commissary List USMCFP Springfield, Federal Bureau of Prisons, MCFP Springfield, 2025. The order form for January to March 2025.
• Admission and Orientation Handbook, Federal Bureau of Prisons, MCFP Springfield, 2017.
• Trust Fund/Deposit Fund Manual, Program Statement 4500.13, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026.
• Compassionate Release/Reduction in Sentence Procedures, Program Statement 5050.51, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Replaced Program Statement 5050.50 (2019).
• Inmate Security Designation and Custody Classification, Program Statement 5100.08, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026.
• Inmate Telephone Regulations, Program Statement 5264.09, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026. Replaced Program Statement 5264.08 (2008).
• Treatment and Care of Inmates with Mental Illness, Program Statement 5310.16, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2025. Defines mental health Care Level 4.
• Patient Care, Program Statement 6031.06, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026.
• Death at MCFP Springfield, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2025. News release of December 2025.
• Innovation and Rehabilitation at MCFP Springfield, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2025.
• Death at MCFP Springfield, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2025. News release of July 2025.
• Press Releases, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2020.
• First Step Act Approved Programs Guide, Federal Bureau of Prisons, Reentry Services Division, 2026. Includes the RDAP locations list.
• Sending Money, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2026.
• Institution Care Levels for Medical Assignment and Institutional Mental Health Care Levels, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2024. Released under Freedom of Information Act request 2024-03455 and published by the Washington Lawyers’ Committee.
• D’Antonio Andrew Washington, Fallen Hero, Federal Bureau of Prisons.

Audits and inspections

• PREA Audit Report: MCFP Springfield, Corrections Consulting Services, 2025. Cynthia Swier’s audit, conducted on site in December 2024.
• Inspection of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Federal Medical Center Devens, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2024. Report 25-009.
• Evaluation of Issues Surrounding Inmate Deaths in Federal Bureau of Prisons Institutions, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2024. Report 24-041.

Court records

• United States v. Dozier, No. 6:20-cv-03314-MDH (W.D. Mo.), U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri, 2026. The docket, including the order of May 12, 2026.
• United States v. Gregos-Gutierrez, No. 22-2095 (8th Cir. Nov. 6, 2023), U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, 2023.
• United States v. Ryan, 52 F.4th 719 (8th Cir. 2022), U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, 2022.
• United States v. Cabines, No. 20-1136 (8th Cir. Aug. 11, 2020), U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, 2020.
• United States v. Payne, 623 F. App’x 829 (8th Cir. 2015), U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, 2015.
• Sell v. United States, 539 U.S. 166 (2003), Supreme Court of the United States, 2003.

News and other sources

• “The Fed Med” 90 Years in Springfield, Missouri, Missouri Medicine, 2020. Michael S. Clarke’s first-person history, not a Bureau record.
• The Civil Division, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Western District of Missouri, 2017.
• 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A), Imposition of a sentence of imprisonment, U.S. Code (Legal Information Institute).
• 18 U.S.C. § 3621(e), Imprisonment of a convicted person, U.S. Code (Legal Information Institute).
• 18 U.S.C. § 4241, Determination of mental competency to stand trial or to undergo postrelease proceedings, U.S. Code (Legal Information Institute).
• 18 U.S.C. § 4245, Hospitalization of an imprisoned person suffering from mental disease or defect, U.S. Code (Legal Information Institute).
• 18 U.S.C. § 4246, Hospitalization of a person due for release but suffering from mental disease or defect, U.S. Code (Legal Information Institute).
• 18 U.S.C. § 4247, General provisions for chapter, U.S. Code (Legal Information Institute).
• 28 C.F.R. § 549.44, Voluntary hospitalization and voluntary administration of psychiatric medication, Code of Federal Regulations (Legal Information Institute).
• 28 C.F.R. § 549.45, Involuntary hospitalization in a suitable facility for psychiatric care or treatment, Code of Federal Regulations (Legal Information Institute).
• 28 C.F.R. § 549.46, Procedures for involuntary administration of psychiatric medication, Code of Federal Regulations (Legal Information Institute).

Sources reviewed September 2026.

Reviewed for legal accuracy by Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., Principal Attorney·September 2026