ST. LOUIS DENTIST'S LIBERTY INTEREST UPHELD
ST. LOUIS, June 16, 2003 - Striking an order to forcibly medicate a St. Louis dentist awaiting trial on fraud charges, the United States Supreme Court today affirmed that an individual has a significant liberty interest in avoiding the unwanted administration of antipsychotic drugs and set firm guidelines on when the government can drug a mentally ill pre-trial defendant against his will.
"The Court recognized a fundamental interest in being free from involuntary medication and made clear that the government can not medicate a defendant against his will solely to prosecute the case unless it has met stringent requirements," said Denise Lieberman, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri, which filed a friend of the court brief on behalf of the St. Louis dentist who had challenged the government's attempts to medicate him.
"The Court held that individual circumstances must be taken into account and could mitigate the government's interest in involuntarily medicating a person in order to prosecute him" Lieberman added. When it comes to government actions that infringe on fundamental liberties, the government should be made to balance the individual's rights, Lieberman said. "While the court today held that some circumstances could warrant forced medication, it conceded that those could be rare."
Dr. Charles Sell, a suburban St. Louis dentist, was charged in 1997 with Medicaid and insurance fraud. He has been diagnosed with "delusional disorder, persecutory type," a mental illness that rendered him incompetent to stand trial. Prosecutors sought a court order to medicate him against his will with antipsychotic drugs in the hope that it would make him competent to stand trial. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis affirmed the lower court's ruling that Sell could be medicated against his will -- even though he is non-dangerous -- solely to promote the government's interest in trying him on the charges against him.
The U.S. Supreme Court today vacated the Order to medicate Dr. Sell and remanded the case to the lower courts to consider the factors the Court laid out. In Dr. Sell's case, he has already been confined for longer than the maximum sentence he could receive if he was found guilty.
"The right of each person to determine his or her medical treatment is one of the most valued liberties in a democratic society," wrote Peter Joy, a professor at Washington University Law School, who authored the brief for the ACLU of Eastern Missouri. "At issue in this case is nothing less than whether an individual has the right to make medical decisions affecting his body and mind."