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No Forced Medication in New Jersey Case

By Kristin Houle

Law.com has this article from the New Jersey Law Journal regarding a case in which a judge has ruled against forcibly medicating a defendant in order to render him competent to stand trial ("Defendant Can't Be Forced to Take Drug to Make Him Fit for Trial, Judge Rules", 11-12-2008). This case raises interesting questions as to how the system should handle a defendant who has been indicted but whose mental illness makes it unlikely that he will be able to stand trial any time soon, if ever. Similar questions emerge in the case of death row inmates who have been deemed incompetent to be executed and are not being forcibly medicated (or for whom medication has not restored competency). These inmates remain in legal limbo, where the state is neither seeking their execution nor moving to commute the sentence...continue to full post

Full post as published by Prevention Not Punishment on November 13, 2008 (boomark / email).