Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-x24gv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-28T17:15:24.635Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Physicians Must Honor Refusal of Treatment to Restore Competency by Non-Dangerous Inmates on Death Row

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Howard Zonana
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The vignette described in the introduction of this symposium raises a number of ethical and legal problems for physicians who work for correctional institutions and death row inmates. They are not confined to correctional physicians, however, as states have requested aid from practicing physicians in the community, and even from other states, when conflicts have arisen in the treatment of death row inmates as they near the date of execution. As outlined, the case involves a 48-year-old man with a long history of schizophrenia, initially diagnosed at age 19. Compliant with medication, he remained generally free from positive symptoms-delusions and hallucinations. Nonetheless, he committed two murders during a robbery and was sentenced to death. Since his incarceration, the defendant has consistently refused psychotropic medications and has been forcibly medicated on several occasions when he exhibited violent outbursts and was overtly psychotic.

Type
Symposium
Information
Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics , Volume 38 , Issue 4 , Winter 2010 , pp. 764 - 773
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Claude Maturana website, available at <http://www.ccadp.org/claudematurana.htm> (last visited September 22, 2010). An inmate named Claude Maturana in Arizona was found incompetent to be executed. After every last medical professional in the state refused to treat Mr. Maturana's schizophrenia, the state conducted a nationwide search, and found a doctor who was willing to state he was competent even though Maturana thought he was already dead. Maturana escaped the death chamber; he died in 2002 during an operation while still in prison.+(last+visited+September+22,+2010).+An+inmate+named+Claude+Maturana+in+Arizona+was+found+incompetent+to+be+executed.+After+every+last+medical+professional+in+the+state+refused+to+treat+Mr.+Maturana's+schizophrenia,+the+state+conducted+a+nationwide+search,+and+found+a+doctor+who+was+willing+to+state+he+was+competent+even+though+Maturana+thought+he+was+already+dead.+Maturana+escaped+the+death+chamber;+he+died+in+2002+during+an+operation+while+still+in+prison.>Google Scholar
Ford v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 399 (1986).Google Scholar
Olfson, M., Marcus, S. C., and Wilk, J. et al., “Awareness of Illness and Nonadherence to Antipsychotic Medications among Persons with Schizophrenia,” Psychiatric Services 57, no. 2 (2006): 205–211.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rogers v. Okin, 478 F.Supp. 1342, (Mass. 1979).Google Scholar
Department of Mental Health regulations provide that a committed person to a mental hospital shall receive treatment and rehabilitation in accordance with accepted therapeutic practice, including oral, subcutaneous, and intramuscular medication when appropriate and when ordered by a physician. However, electroconvulsive treatment and lobotomy require separate consent by the patient pursuant to Mass. Gen. Laws Ann. ch. 123, §23. Mass. Dept. Mental Health Reg. §220.02Google Scholar
Rogers v. Okin, 478 F. Supp 1342 (1979); Rogers v. Okin, 634 F.2d 650 (1980); Okin v. Rogers, 451 U.S. 906 (1981); Mills v. Rogers, 457 U.S. 291 (1982); Rogers v. Okin, 738 F2d 1 (1984).Google Scholar
Breneman, D., “Forcible Antipsychotic Medication and the Unfortunate Side Effects of Sell v. United States” 539 U.S. 166, 123 S. Ct 2174 (2003), Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy 27, no. 3 (2004): 965–984.Google Scholar
Ford v. Wainwright 477 U.S. 399 (1986).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ford v. Wainwright 477 U.S. 399 at 422.Google Scholar
Panetti v. Quarterman 551 US 930 (2007), The prisoner's severe delusions could have rendered him incompetent to be executed even though he could identify the stated reason for his execution. Thus, the prisoner's submission that his documented delusions prevented him from comprehending the meaning and purpose of the punishment to which he had been sentenced should have been considered.Google Scholar
Code of Medical Ethics of the American Medical Association, Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs, Current Opinions and Annotations, 2010–2011 Edition AMA Press.Google Scholar
The American Nurses Association (ANA) also forbids its members from participating in lethal injection directly or indirectly, in a revised and expanded policy passed in 2010, available at <http://www.nursingworld.org/EthicsHumanRights> (last visited September 22, 2010).+(last+visited+September+22,+2010).>Google Scholar
The American Osteopathic Association (AOA), representing osteopathic physicians in the U.S., “deems it an unethical act for any osteopathic physician to deliver or be required to deliver a lethal injection for the purpose of execution in capital crimes.” American Osteopathic association (AOA), Position Paper: Executions in Capital Crimes, Chicago, 2000.Google Scholar
Harper v. State, 759 P 2d 358 (1988).Google Scholar
Washington v. Harper, 494 US 210 (1990).Google Scholar
Id., at 231.Google Scholar
Id., at 224.Google Scholar
504 U.S. 127 (1992).Google Scholar
Id., at 135.Google Scholar
Id., at 135.Google Scholar
Id.Google Scholar
Id.Google Scholar
Id., at 138.Google Scholar
Id., at 142 (Kennedy, J., concurring).Google Scholar
Id., at 139 (Kennedy, J., concurring).Google Scholar
539 U.S. 166 (2003).Google Scholar
Id., at 169.Google Scholar
Id.Google Scholar
Id., at 179.Google Scholar
Id., at 180.Google Scholar
Id.Google Scholar
Louisiana v. Perry, 610 So. 2d. 746 (1992).Google Scholar
Fred Singleton v. State, 313 S.C 75 (1993).Google Scholar
Singleton v. State, 437 S.E. 2d 53 at 61 (1993) noting the opposition being based on the causal relationship between the administration of the drug and the execution.Google Scholar
Singleton v. Norris, 319 F3d 1018 (2003).Google Scholar
Zonana, H., “Competency to Be Executed and Forced Medication: Singleton v. Norris,” Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law 31, no. 3 (2003): 372–376.Google Scholar
See Singleton v. Norris, supra note 35, at 1036.Google Scholar
Amicus Brief in Support of Petitioner, Perry v. Louisiana, 610 So. 2d 746 (La. 1992).Google Scholar
Sands, P., Torture Team (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).Google Scholar
“August 1, 2002 John Yoo memo / First May 10, 2005 Steven Bradbury memo / Second May 10, 2005 Steven Bradbury memo / May 30, 2005 Steven Bradbury memo,” available at <http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/04/16/the-torture-memos/> (last visited September 23, 2010).+(last+visited+September+23,+2010).>Google Scholar
ICRC Report on the Treatment of Fourteen “High Value Detainees” in CIA Custody, February 2007, available at <http://www.nybooks.com/media/doc/2010/04/22/icrc-report.pdf> (last visited September 22, 2010).+(last+visited+September+22,+2010).>Google Scholar
Farber, N., Aboff, B. M., Weiner, J., Davis, E. B., Boyer, E. G., and Ubel, P. A., “Physicians' Willingness to Paticipate in the Process of Lethal Injection for Capital Punishment,” Annals Internal Medicine 135, no. 10 (2001): 884–890.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baze v. Rees 128 S. Ct. 1520 at 1526 (2008).Google Scholar
Baum, K., “To Comfort Always”: Physician Participation in Executions,” New York University Journal of Leglislation & Public Policy 5, no. 1 (2001–2002): 47–82, at 52. See also Clark, P., “Physician Participation in Executions: Care Giver or Executioner,” Journal of Law Medicine & Ethics 34, no. 1 (2006): 95–104.Google Scholar
Associated Press, “In Moon Suits Florida Doctors Carry Out Executions,” August 28, 2007, available at <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20484588/> (last visited September 23, 2010).+(last+visited+September+23,+2010).>Google Scholar
Black, L. and Sade, R. M., “Lethal Injections and Physicians,” JAMA 298, no. 23 (2007): 2779–2781, at 2781.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
North Carolina Department of Corrections v. North Carolina Medical Board, 675 S.E.2d 641 (2009).Google Scholar
Gawande, A., “When Law and Ethics Collide-Why Physicians Participate in Executions,” New England Journal of Medicine 354, no. 12 (March 23, 2006): 1221–1229.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Groner, J., “Lethal Injection: A Stain on the Face of Medicine,” BMJ 325, no. 371 (November 2, 2002): 1026–1028.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lafleur, W. R., Bohme, G., and Shimazono, S., eds., Dark Medicine: Rationalizing Unethical Medical Research (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2007): at 259.Google Scholar