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By the late 1990s, Yoder had immersed himself in such ideas. Because of his views, Szasz is often contacted by disgruntled patients--"there have been thousands," he sighs. But Yoder was different. "He's extraordinary in the amount of information he amassed," says Szasz. The psychiatrist was impressed that Yoder had tried to go to prison rather than Chester, since Szasz has argued for decades that it's more humane to imprison lawbreakers for a set number of years rather than forcibly treat them in a mental hospital indefinitely.
Yoder's calls and letters touched many. Reporter George Pawlaczyk of the Belleville News-Democrat began writing stories about Yoder, and other papers followed. A columnist for the Natal Witness, South Africa's oldest newspaper, took up Yoder's cause. So did Dr. Patch Adams. Adams worked in the er at St. Elizabeths, a Washington mental hospital, during the '70s and '80s. Previously, in 1963, he was himself a patient at a psychiatric hospital for two weeks. He says he learned more from fellow patients than the distant doctors, and he felt a personal connection to Yoder's case. "I wasn't bullied by his intensity, as I think many are," he says.
Bullied, annoyed--or frightened. Most folks wouldn't appreciate Yoder's insistent calls; he can rant if he doesn't get quick action. Chester now prohibits Yoder from calling at least a dozen people who have complained about his phone manners. Even Equip for Equality, the nonprofit that accused Chester of writing spurious reports on Yoder, reluctantly told the facility earlier this year that Yoder had begun making inappropriate calls. Group officials say he left a message in January in which he promised to "f___ you up the ass in the newspapers" for not fighting hard enough for him.
In his vulgar way, Yoder actually had a point. Although it is a large, federally funded organization designed to monitor institutions like Chester, Equip for Equality has never investigated the facility--even after it discovered those allegedly false reports. For years, some patients' advocates have complained that Chester provides inadequate care. Just in the past year, a state commission has substantiated charges that Chester has improperly confiscated patients' property, denied their privacy and failed to keep one patient from spreading his feces around a bathroom until Chester's human-rights committee got involved. "We've had longstanding, very serious concerns about Chester," admits Barry Taylor, Equip's legal director. "But we have limited resources."
Chester's worst failure may be Yoder himself, a man who--according to the facility--hasn't improved under its care. If Yoder is paranoid, certainly the worst approach is to omit information from his record and violate the painstaking procedures for committing someone. (Appellate judges have overturned three of Yoder's 13 commitment orders because of improprieties.) Some argue that Chester officials aren't so much hostile toward Yoder as negligent. "My fear is that they just don't care enough about Rodney to take any action," says Mark Heyrman, a Chicago law professor who once represented Yoder. "If Yoder is mentally ill and does not recognize that, then they need to medicate him. If he's not mentally ill, they should let him go. But they know when they have to do anything with him, it's going to be a big hairy mess."