Law Commons^™

Is Prosecution "Medically Appropriate"?, Douglas Mossman Md

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

Each year, U.S. courts send thousands of incompetent defendants to hospitals for treatment, where psychiatrists frequently administer psychotropic medication that can alleviate symptoms and allow the defendants to proceed with criminal adjudication. Although defendants and their attorneys usually do not object to such treatment, treatment refusals in two recent, nationally prominent cases-those of Russell Eugene Weston, Jr., the accused Capitol shooter, and Charles T. Sell, a dentist charged with filing false insurance claims-have focused legal and media attention on whether and under what conditions competence restoration can be forced on an unwilling defendant.

In its June 2003 decision in Sell …

The Psychiatrist And Execution Competency: Fording Murky Ethical Waters, Douglas Mossman Md

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

The focus of this article is whether it is ethical for physicians to participate in the evaluation or treatment of condemned prisoners who are incompetent. According to Ward, this may be the "ultimate question, faced by psychiatrists who are asked to deal with execution competency. This article is not intended to offer an answer to this question. Rather, it seeks to (1) elucidate issues connected to the "ultimate question's" resolution, (2) articulate a set of premises within which psychiatrists should evaluate their relationship to institutions whose purposes include punishing criminals, and (3) suggest that, if the death penalty itself is …