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| Calif. Supreme Court: Drugs cannot be forced on mentally ill inmates |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 01/06/2004 |
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Mentally ill inmates cannot be forced to take anti-psychotic drugs, the California Supreme Court has ruled, allowing a certain class of prisoners to refuse treatment in limited circumstances. Monday's 6-1 decision concerns California inmates who have done their time for criminal convictions but have been found to be mentally unfit for release to the community. Those inmates, hundreds in all, are housed at state mental institutions until they are deemed fit for return to the community. If they refuse anti-psychotics, the court ruled, the state cannot force them to take the medication unless a judge authorizes it. A judge must find that the inmate is incompetent to refuse treatment and is an immediate danger to himself or others. Justice Carlos Moreno, writing for the majority, said the 1985 law authorizing the retention of mentally disordered inmates past their release dates allows the state to administer anti-psychotics against a patient's wishes when there is a medical emergency or when safety and lives are at risk. While the court acknowledged the drugs can work wonders for the mentally ill, the medicine also can produce intolerable side effects, including muscle spasms, blurred vision, dry mouth, sexual dysfunction, body rigidity and tremors, among others. The law, Moreno said, was similar to those affecting mentally ill inmates serving their original sentences. In dissent, Justice Janice Rogers Brown wrote the ruling goes against the legislative purpose of the 1985 law, which was designed to rehabilitate the mentally ill and safeguard the public. The case concerned Kanuri Surgury Qawi, sentenced to four years in 1991 for assault and battery. On parole, he was arrested for stalking a sales clerk he claimed was his wife. While incarcerated the second time, authorities diagnosed him with paranoid schizophrenia, and he has repeatedly been kept from the community under the Mentally Disordered Offender Act. In 2000, he challenged his involuntary treatment and said the drugs' side effects were unbearable. Qawi's attorney, Renee Torres, said Monday's decision means that just because the state can lock somebody up it deems mentally disordered, "They can't force them to be medicated." |
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