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...whether the 53-year-old can be forced to take anti-psychotic drugs to make him well enough to stand trial on insurance fraud charges.

Insurance fraud?! I could maybe, maybe, understand if he were accused of murder, rape, etc.

IMO, there's something just plain wrong with drugging another person against his/her will. I'd bet he will be appealing his conviction (we all know once the justice machine of govt. is turned against a person, there is no escape) baised on the using of 'mind-altering' drugs. This will drag out for a few more years, with the taxpayers footing the bill for an overzelious prosecutor.

Cheeze louise! A person does not have a "Constitutional right" to their body in so far as any action, or lack of action, would adverse effect those around him.

It doesn't effect me one way or the other of John Doe get's his ears pierced or his hair dyed orange. On the other hand it does effect me, and everyone else, if TB positive John Doe refuses medication b/c he claims a "Constitutional right" to his own body...well, there you cross the line.

This was driven home by Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. at the turn of the last century agreed with the majority of the Court in its decision to permit forced steralization of retarded people.

The case had to do with three generations in one family of "idoits" (in the legal sense, person w/ IQ's between 60-85 I believe) who kept having idoitic(retarded) babies and still more babies, till at last all three generations had become a terrible burden on the community. "Three generations of idoits," declared Holmes for the Court, "are enough."

IOW, individual "rights" do not,and should not, trump the common rights of all.

I heard this on C-Span radio driving into work today. C-Span was actually reading from an article in the Christian Science Monitor; it sounded like that one was a bit more in depth. Anyway, for me, this case is a tough one. On one hand, we can't say, carte blanche, that someone should be forced to medicate, simply because such a decision might set a precident that would enable schools to forcibly medicate children, if they are a "problem child", or, on a broader level, it could even empower the gov't to forcibly medicate anyone who is considered to be not of "sound mind".

On the other hand though, we can't say that there's never a case to forcibly medicate someone. As yankeedame said on this thread, if someone has TB, they should be forced to take antibiotics, as TB is a contageous disease. Clearly there's a social implication there, where the needs of society outwiegh the needs for personal privacy.

I guess that's what it comes down to really, is comprimise (as with many things in life). I certainly hope that in whatever the SC decides in this particular case, they write into their decision, assuming it's a decision in favor of the plantiffs, this case should NOT be used as a precident to force medication on anyone, for any reason, for example the ritalin/"problem child" hypothetical I mentioned earlier, and also the case of the Christian Scientists, who believe no medical intervention should be preformed. While I disagree with that on a religious level, I think it'd be a terribly slippery slope to allow the infringement of personal religious freedom for the sake of "societal concerns".