Court OKs Limited Drugging of Defendants

Associated Press ^ | 06/16/03 | Staff Writer

[bedolido]

Supreme Court Rules There Are Limits on When Government Can Forcibly Drug Criminal Defendants

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that there are limits on when the government can forcibly medicate mentally ill criminal defendants to make them well enough to stand trial for fraud or other charges.

The 6-3 ruling, a defeat for prosecutors, means that the government will have to revise a common practice now of putting defendants on anti-psychotric drugs for their trials. Justices said that the Constitution allows the government to administer drugs only "in limited circumstances."

The case required the court to balance the government's interest in punishing nonviolent crime with a person's constitutional right to control his or her body.

Justice Stephen Breyer, writing for the majority, said that courts in considering individual cases must decide if involuntary medications "will significant further" interests in punishments.

The federal government puts hundreds of defendants on medication each year to make them competent to stand trial. Most take the drugs willingly. In a recent 12-month period, 59 people were medicated against their wishes and about three-fourths were restored to competency, the government has said.

In a series of decisions more than a decade ago, the Supreme Court ruled that inmates considered dangerous could be forced to take medication and that defendants in criminal trials could be required to take drugs if it was medically appropriate.

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[Destructor]

A potentially dangerous precedent is set.

[appalachian_dweller]

I wonder if this could be applied to schools forcing kids to take Riddlin.

[wretchard]

If a defendant were genuinely psychotic, such that treatment was required to allow a minimum competence required to be represented by counsel, then why is that person standing trial instead of being confined in a mental hospital? On other hand, if that psychotic person were left in a total state of incoherence, he would lose total control over his fate, and the entire matter would be essentially left in the hands of a court appointed lawyer, who will call all the shots while his client raves in the background.