Court Opinion

ID: 9486047
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 11:36:43.844998+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:30.439527
License: Public Domain

CUDAHY, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I believe that the majority has correctly analyzed a complex problem in light of Harper, 494 U.S. 210, 110 S.Ct. 1028, 108 L.Ed.2d 178 (1990), and Riggins, — U.S. —, 112 S.Ct. 1810, 118 L.Ed.2d 479 (1992), and reached a perhaps inescapable result. The analysis and result rest, however, on Dr. Parwatikar’s assurance that “the drugs ad*600ministered * * * would not cause any difficulties with cognition and communication which would prevent [Sullivan] from participating in a hearing on the issue of whether medicine should be enforced.” Op. at 598. Sullivan seems to take exception to these assurances, in principle at least, by adopting the position that one cannot effectively address one’s requirement for psychotropic drugs as long as one is subject to their influence and control. As a matter of philosophy — if not of science — this position is not without some appeal. Nonetheless, I can find no clear place for it among the decided cases and it may not lend itself to practical application here.