Opinion ID: 2062379
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Sufficiency of the Connection Between the Treatment and the Treatment Goal.

Text: Khiem contends that the hospital's decision was arbitrary because, according to him, no doctor has testified, to a reasonable degree of medical certainty, that the proposed treatment will probably render Mr. Khiem competent to stand trial. He apparently bases this contention on Jackson v. Indiana, 406 U.S. 715, 92 S.Ct. 1845, 32 L.Ed.2d 435 (1972). Jackson does not support his claim. The question in Jackson was whether a criminal defendant may be committed indefinitely solely on account of his lack of capacity to stand trial. The Court held that a person so detained cannot be held more than the reasonable period of time necessary to determine whether there is a substantial probability that he will attain that capacity in the foreseeable future. Id. at 738, 92 S.Ct. at 1858. In the absence of a showing of such a substantial probability, the defendant must be released or civil commitment proceedings must be instituted. Id. This eminently sensible holding provides no support for Khiem's claim that physicians may not inaugurate a course of treatment without advance assurance of probable success. Indeed, Jackson addressed neither the question of involuntary medication nor the scope of a court's review of medical judgments. In Harper, on the other hand, the Supreme Court held that the proper standard for reviewing governmental conduct in this kind of situation is to determine its reasonableness. 494 U.S. at 222-23, 110 S.Ct. at 1037. [T]his basic regimebase-line decision committed to medical professionals, subject to judicial review for arbitrarinesshas recently been upheld as comporting with due process.... Charters, supra, 863 F.2d at 308 (citations omitted).