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| Jared Loughner |
The courts are concerned about this and last week, a federal appellate panel (I am not sure how this differs from court and can’t be bothered to look it up) reversed itself and authorized the Bureau of Prisons to forcibly medicate Loughner. A previous panel ordered the prison hospital to stop forcibly medicating him.
It seems there is a big legal battle going on about to forcibly medicate or not to forcibly medicate. In May, the federal judge handling the case determined that Loughner was mentally ill, was not fit to stand trial on the basis of medical evaluations and that he was suffering from schizophrenia. In other words, doctors have determined that this kid is mental.
On finding this out, the federal judge ordered the prison authorities to find a “treatment plan” for the boy. The prison authorities responded by forcibly medicating the lad with anti psychotic drugs. The reason? Loughner had become a danger to others and himself.
Loughner’s lawyers complained saying that they can’t medicate their client without court approval and the appellate panel stopped it, but now have started it again on the basis that Loughner’s condition has worsened and that he is suicidal; its an emergency situation basically. His condition is possibly “life threatening”, says the court. Loughner has bouts of screaming and crying and, “He also reported that the radio was talking to him and inserting thoughts into his mind," the court states, according to today Wall Street Journal. “I want to die. Give me the injection, kill me now.”, the court has Loughner as saying.
Loughner’s lawyers are opposed to forced medication as their client denies he’s suicidal.
It seems to me that the meat of the issue here is that the attorneys for the accused don’t believe that the state is medicating Loughner out of an emergency, because they think he may harm himself or others. In their response to the court, Loughners lawyers argued that, “the dosage of the anti psychotic drug seemed less aimed at dealing with an emergency and more at restoring Mr. Loughner to competency without judicial supervision.”, says the WSJ.
An ominous outcome of the courts decision is that it is, "an implicit endorsement that the prison hospital has a right to treat in an emergency absent judicial review," says a law professor at the University of Virginia. That doesn't sound good.
But what’s even more bizarre, as Christopher Slobogin, a professor of law and psychiatry at Vanderbilt University points out, is that this treatment supposedly triggered by concern for Mr Loughner’s well being "could end up getting the government what it wants, a restored defendant." And the Wall street Journal report admits that by force medicating Loughner with these drugs, the state “could restore his ability to stand trial and possibly face the death penalty.” This seems the most likeley truth behind all the maneuvering if you ask me.
So it seems publicly, the state argues it is forcibly treating this guy with anti psychotic drugs in order to prevent him from hurting or possibly killing himself but actually hopes that the treatment will “restore” him, turn him from a mental case in to a mentally competent human being so that he can stand trial and be executed.
But even if drugs can do that, I have a question. If he was judged mentally insane to the point that he couldn’t stand trial. Was he not mentally insane when he killed the people? Maybe he was told by the radio to kill these people? So even if drugs can make someone mentally competent after the fact so that he can sit through a trial and be executed by the state; it can’t change what he was when he committed the crime can it?
What this person did was terrible. He has brought misery and sorrow to so many people by his actions. But if he was sick he’s sick. I don’t have much confidence in the state dealing with this in a way other than to get the needle in the guy’s arm as soon as possible. This is America after all.
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