Court Opinion

ID: 9770352
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 15:59:30.59305+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:16.693895
License: Public Domain

Ray Thornton, Justice, dissenting. For hundreds of years, it has been a fundamental law that an insane person cannot be subjected to the death penalty. In Ford v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 399 (1986), the United States Supreme Court made clear that this fundamental law was secured by the Eighth Amendment. The Supreme Court stated “this Court is compelled to conclude that the Eighth Amendment prohibits a State from carrying out a sentence of death upon a prisoner who is insane.” Id. In 1990, the United States Supreme Court held that a mentally ill prisoner possessed a significant liberty interest in avoiding the unwanted administration of antipsychotic drugs. Washington v. Harper, 494 U.S. 210 (1990). However, the Court held that “the Due Process Clause permits the state to treat a prison inmate who has a serious illness with antipsychotic drugs against his will, if the inmate is dangerous to himself or others and the treatment is in the inmate’s medical interest.” Id. (emphasis supplied). By today’s decision, the majority adopts the view that forcing Mr. Singleton to take antipsychotic drugs meets the test imposed by Harper that such treatment must be “in the inmate’s medical interest.” Id. I disagree that forcible medication that enables a mentally ill prisoner to become competent to be executed can be in the inmate’s medical interest, and I respectfully dissent.