Keyhea

In this case we hold that state prisoners presently have a statutory right to refuse long-term treatment with psychotropic drugs absent a judicial determination that they are incompetent to do so.

I. Introduction

Psychotropic (or antipsychotic) drugs have become a primary tool of public mental health professionals for treating serious mental disorders, replacing such earlier measures as lobotomy, insulin shock, and electroshock. In many patients they minimize or eliminate psychotic symptoms. (Kemna, Current Status of Institutionalized Mental Health Patients’ Right to Refuse Psychotropic Drugs (1985) 6 J. Legal Med. 107 , 109-110 (hereafter cited as Right to Refuse); Gelman, Mental Hospital Drugs, Professionalism, and the Constitution (1984) 72 Geo. L.J. 1725 , 1726, 1741 (hereafter cited as Mental Hospital Drugs).) They “also possess a remarkable potential for undermining individual will and self-direction, thereby producing a psychological state of unusual receptiveness to the directions of custodians.” (Mental Hospital Drugs, supra, at p. 1751.)

The drugs also, however, have many serious side effects. Reversible side effects include akathesia (a distressing urge to…