On June 16, 2003, the United States Supreme Court upheld the right to refuse unwanted psychotropic medication in its decision in Sell v. United States, delivered earlier today.

Ruling in favor of a St. Louis dentist who resisted government attempts to force medicate him with antipsychotic drugs, the Court held that while involuntary medication solely for trial competence purposes may be appropriate in some instances, those instances would likely be “rare.”

Charged with Medicaid fraud in 1997, Dr. Sell was found incompetent to stand trial because he suffered from paranoid delusions. Dr. Sell was determined not to pose a danger to himself or others. Although anti-psychotic drugs have severe side effects, including neurological damage in a large percentage of cases, and only suppress the symptoms of mental illness, the government claimed the authority to chemically compel Dr. Sell’s mental competence by forcing medication on him.

“By ruling in Dr. Sell’s favor the Court has vindicated the fundamental right of every American to control his or her own thought processes,” said Richard Glen Boire, Director of the Center for Cognitive Liberty & Ethics, a nonprofit law and policy center that filed an amicus brief on behalf of Dr. Sell. But the court stopped short of considering whether forced medication violated the First Amendment, as the CCLE had urged them to do. “They made a good ruling, but they missed a major opportunity to recognize that thought is, at least partly, rooted in brain chemistry and that giving the government broad powers to directly manipulate the brain chemistry of a non-violent citizen would go against our nation’s most cherished values,” said Boire.

Hailed as a victory for mental health advocates, today’s decision could have had implications that reached far beyond health care, but the Court failed to address several fundamental issues raised by the case. “Emerging neurotechnology from pharmaceuticals to brain scanners are making consciousness more accessible and manipulable than ever before,” said Boire, “the court had a chance to update legal thinking about cognition in a way could have been very relevant now and in the coming decades,” said Boire. At minimum, the test announced by the court will ensure that the lower courts considering forced medication orders ask why it should be medically appropriate to force drug an individual who is 1) not dangerous, and 2) competent to make up his own mind about treatment.

Resources:

Read this press release online at:
http://www.cognitiveliberty.org/news/US_v_Sell_decision.htm

Further materials concerning the Dr. Sell case, including the Supreme Court's ruling, are available online at: http://www.cognitiveliberty.org/dll/sell_index.htm.

The CCLE brief to the Supreme Court is online at: http://www.cognitiveliberty.org/pdf/pet_cert_brief.pdf

Contact Information:

Richard Glen Boire, Esq.,
Center for Cognitive Liberty & Ethics
E-mail: info@cognitiveliberty.org
Telephone/Fax: 1-530-750-7912

The Center for Cognitive Liberty & Ethics is nonprofit law and policy center working in the public interest to foster cognitive liberty—the right of each individual to think independently, and to use the full spectrum of his or her mind. The CCLE encourages social policies that respect and protect the full potential and autonomy of the human intellect. For more information on our organization and the issues we investigate, visit the CCLE’s Web site at www.cognitiveliberty.org