DENVER — A mentally ill man charged with killing three people in 2015 at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood clinic because it offered abortion services will not be forcibly medicated as he appeals a federal judge’s order allowing the involuntary treatment.

Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Robert Blackburn ruled that involuntary medication was the only realistic approach with a substantial chance of making Robert Lewis Dear Jr., 64, competent to stand trial and was also in the best interest of his overall health, both mental and physical.

Dear’s attorneys appealed the order to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and on Monday Blackburn ruled that Dear would not be involuntarily medicated while the appeal is considered, which could take several months. Federal prosecutors did not object to the order being put on hold, according to court records.

Dear faces 179 counts in state court for the attack on the Colorado Springs clinic, which injured five law enforcement officers along with claiming three lives during the course of a five-hour standoff.

Alleged Planned Parenthood shooter Robert Dear can be forcibly medicated, judge says

Dear’s federal public defenders challenged the involuntary medication order in part because it allows force to also be potentially used to get Dear to take medication or undergo monitoring for any potential side effects to his physical health.

Dear’s lawyers have argued that forcing Dear to be treated for his delusional disorder could aggravate conditions including untreated high blood pressure and high cholesterol.

However, in the appeal, they say that Blackburn’s decision to give prison doctors the right to force treatment or monitoring for other ailments is “miles away” from the limited uses for forced medication allowed by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The appeal noted that the last forced medication order reviewed by the 10th Circuit took three months to resolve.

Dear’s prosecution has stalled, first in state court and then in federal court, because he has been repeatedly found mentally incompetent to stand trial since his arrest and he has refused to take medication.

During a three-day hearing this summer on whether he should be forcibly medicated, prosecutors argued that medication had a substantial likelihood, based on research and the experience of government experts, to make Dear well enough to meet the legal standard for mental competency — being able to understand proceedings and assist in his defense.

Dear, who has called himself a “warrior for the babies,” intended to wage “war” against the clinic because it offered abortion services, arming himself with four semi-automatic rifles, five handguns, two other rifles, a shotgun, propane tanks and 500 rounds of ammunition, prosecutors have alleged. He began shooting outside the clinic before getting inside by shooting his way through a door, according to his federal indictment.

After Dear’s prosecution bogged down in state court over the competency issue, Dear was charged in federal court in 2019 on 68 new counts under the 1994 Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act. Federal prosecutors have said they would not seek the death penalty against him if he is convicted, but life in prison instead.

Dr. Robert Sarrazin, a psychiatrist who works with the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, testified in the August hearing that he believed Dear would respond well to several anti-psychotic medications and could be competent for trial within four to six months of beginning the drugs, according to earlier Gazette reporting. Doctors have proposed a treatment plan involving paliperidone, aripiprazole, haloperidol and olanzapene.

Dear could face three life sentences if convicted.

A review hearing in the 4th Judicial District Court in Colorado Springs for Dear’s state charges is scheduled Friday.

Editor’s note: This story includes information from previous Gazette reporting.