ABSTRACT
Although the Supreme Court has not dealt squarely with a civil right to refuse treatment case since its 1982 remand decision in Mills, it has since decided a case involving the rights of convicted prisoners to refuse medication (Washington v. Harper 1990; Perlin and Cucolo 2016, §8-7.1); one on the question of whether an insanity-pleading
defendant was denied a fair trial because he was involuntarily medicated at trial, thus depriving the jury of a fair presentation of his “natural demeanor” at the insanity stage (Riggins v. Nevada 1992; Perlin and Cucolo 2016, §8-7.2); and one on whether a state may involuntarily medicate a defendant in order to render him or her competent to stand trial (Sell v. United States 2003). ese cases are discussed extensively in this chapter.
