Doping Defendants Down

Yesterday, the Supremes (my favorite jurispudential soul group) reversed a federal appeals court in St. Louis , ruling that the state couldn't involuntarily drug a dentist accused of Medicare fraud in order to render him competent to stand trial. Sure, the opinion, penned by Breyer, isn't exactly On Liberty, but it does at least affirm that the government has to show a pretty compelling interest before it goes tinkering with people's brain chemistry against their will.

Comments

[fyodor]

Man, this just opens the door to going insane to beat the rap!!!

Uh, that's a joke!

[BB]

OK, here come the unintended consequences! It sounds good - no defendant is to have his brain tinkered with by unwanted drugs. So --- we have hundreds of murderers who are psychotics off their medication.

(About 2 percent of the population is psychotic, or nearly 3 million people in the US alone. Not many of them are inclined to kill, but some are. And that's not including all the non-psychotics who are severely depressed, have no anger control, or are sociopaths).

Tomorrow the guy appears in court, says "I'm guilty - but I'm crazy!"

What will his lawyer do? He will show his client to the jury --- going up the walls for lack of medication. Psychotic as hell. The jury will naturally assume that he is not responsible for his deeds, and declare him NOT GUILTY BY REASON OF INSANITY. --- Even though he was taking his meds at the time of the murder and was perfectly rational.

This decision means that no jury in the US is going to see a psychotic defendant under good medication control. It will create a cast-iron defense for murder. It will also broaden the opportunity for non-psychotic murderers to fake psychosis (it's not hard, and the incentive is enormous).

You just KNOW that every defense lawyer in the country is going to use this one. What a scam!

The upshot: Libertarianism 1, Real reason loses again.

[Douglas Fletcher]

Look on the bright sid, BB, it'll make your day more exciting worrying if there's a psyo coming around the corner who just happens to go whacko when he sees your color of hair...

[Julian]

The above would be far more compelling if there were any sign that it's author had stopped to read the decision in his haste to churn out another boilerplate bit on how very out of touch with reality libertarians are. The nonviolent nature of the offense was central to the decision, which doesn't create a per se rule, it just establishes the conditions under which involuntary medication is permissible. Medicare fraud didn't make the cut. And I think it's a bit harder to get off on an insanity defense than the author seems to believe.

[Russ]

IMO, the real problem here is that insanity can be used as a defence against criminal charges. "Temporary Insanity" is even more bogus.
Crazy folks are just as deserving of prison, if not for rehabilitation, then for the protection that it affords the population from a dangerous individual.

When people are held responsible for their actions, regardless of their mental state, we might just end up with a more civilized society.

[Julian]

But the insanity defense doesn't mean that homicidal lunatics are let off scot free... they're just confined for treatment, with the date of release determined by the progress made, rather than ordinary sentencing standards. I don't think anyone is suggested that the genuinely dangerous should just wander the streets. And I'm all for holding people responsible for their actions... but only when they actually are responsible for their actions.

[Lefty]

Folks locked up before trials commonly suffer from depression. They are routinely zolofted by the Sheriff's buddy/physician and appear at trial looking like a zombie - just as scary to a jury as a schizophrenic. It's interesting that an inordinant number of defendants on death row, later found to be innocent, were drugged at their trials.

[fyodor]

I haven't read the decision, but I would think there'd be a big difference between making a defendent take a drug that has already been subscribed to him and which there's some evidence that he has taken regularly sometime in the recent past versus pushing something on someone that he has never taken nor has ever had any inclination to before the trial.

OTOH, I always feel queasy about there being different sets of rules depending on how serious the crime is, just doesn't make inherent sense to me.

Anyway, BB's scenario seems implausible enough to me to wanna second Douglas Fletcher's advice!

[joe]

Russ,

You mentioned two reasons for putting people in prison: rehabilitation and public safety. There is a third, punishment. Insane people need to be rehabilitated and kept from harming people, but they do not need to be punished. Institutions designed for punishment are not appropriate for them.

[Tommy_Grand]

Mr. Sanchez,

It is not terribly accurate to refer to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit as: "a St. Louis appeals court."

[Julian]

Good point; I'll reword it.

[Lefty]

Joe and Russ, except with corrections professionals (and maybe only half of them), punishment is now recognized as the primary reason for locking people up. If we could poke criminals through the bars with sticks we would do so.

The growth in this attitude and the prison beds to accommodate it, along with the commensurate reduction in mental health facilities, has placed more mentally ill people in prison than ever in history - some estimates are up to 10% of the population. Heavy doses of drugs are the treatment of choice by prison personnel.

And 95% of them are coming back to live in the community they came from.

[Warren]

Not guilty by reason of insanity is a crock. The fact that the guy was insane has nothing to do with whether he did the deed or not. Insanity is something that should be considered at sentencing, not at trial. If the guy's a few twigs shy of a nest we can put him in a rubber room or on probation conditioned on his taking his meds or what have you. But if some nut job commits murder, or even fraud, they are still guilty of a crime. I'd even like to see alternative sentencing, for all non-violent crimes. The only thing prison does is separates the criminal from the rest of us, and only for as long as he's locked up. But that don't put the tiers back on my Chevy.

[David Nieporent]

BB, the problem with your "Libertarianism 1, Real reason loses again" horror scenario -- Sane guy commits murder, goes off his medication at trial, gets a not guilty by reason of insanity verdict, and walks free is twofold:

1. The court didn't say that defendants couldn't be forcibly medicated. They just laid out certain conditions which must be met for it to happen.

2. Defendants who go crazy during trial don't have the option of "not guilty by reason of insanity." That only applies to those insane at the time of the crime. Defendants who are crazy at the time of the trial are locked in hospitals until found sane to stand trial.