no more rights or false alarm?

http://www.aapsonline.org/press/nrsell.htm


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Defendants can be forcibly drugged even though they haven’t been convicted of any charges and pose no danger to themselves or others.

...

"It’s a shocking, inhumane decision. Now, all the government needs are allegations and a cooperative psychiatrist to forcibly drug any citizen," said Andrew Schlafly, General Counsel for the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS).

...

Dr. Sell, a St. Louis dentist, has been imprisoned for more than 4 years, including one- and-one-half years in solitary confinementafter being charged with Medicaid fraud. He has never been brought to trial.

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hopefully this story is hyped up a lot.


brad

"There just has to be more to this that we don't know." The chances of this are only about 50/50 however. Just remember that this guy has waited 4 years for trial for medicaid fraud, and the prom mom (gave birth at the prom, killed her baby, and went back to the prom) was released after 3 years. Then decide just how scary this is.


-Glenn

I could not get the link to work on the computer I'm on, so I could be wrong and will try to check it out later on a computer that works better. That disclaimer aside, it looks to me like this was a commitment of the defendant because he was deemed incompetent to stand trial. Once that happens, the defendant is sent off to a mental hospital. If he gets competent he goes to trial. (Note that competence to stand trial and mental illness are not the same. A defendant can be mentally ill yet competent.) Anyway, if the statute involved is anything like the one in my State there are some safety provisions in the statute. There are review mechanisms and the court can dismiss a charge if enough time has lapsed and it would be unjust to proceed. That is not to say there has been no abuse or injustice in the case you discuss, just that committing incompetent defendants is done a lot and due process is provided. We don't have a committment system like the Soviets. I will check the post out and see if I need to correct this.

i guess when a case goes to an appellate court (appeals or whatever), which is what happened here, there are a panel of judges.


in any case, one judge gave a rather scathing dissenting opinion.


'We don't have a committment system like the Soviets.'


well, anyway, im glad youre not a 'conspiracy theorist', as you put it.


lets stick to facts like implantable microchips, forced drugging, asset forfeiture/seizure, repealing 4th amendment via patriot act, global pollution tax, gun confiscation, US troops conducting military checkpoints on highways (iowa national guard was in the newspapers a few weeks ago when they stopped everybody and searched their vehicles just for practice, to 'get the lay of the land')


brad


p.s. im sure that 1 1/2 years of solitary confinement is good mental health treatment (you probably know that the soviets could easily force confessions for any crime by leaving people in solitary until they would do anything to get out.)

I didn't see the thing about the National Guard. That's bad. I might have been dumb enough to ask what right they had to search me (none). Then again, I did see one of our Guardsmen with no police power display some very bad muzzle control in an airport. She was carrying her weapon so that is was pointing at a three-year old child's head. I was thinking of saying something, but figured I would be detained on some false basis due to paranoia and miss my flight. And our troops are highly trained and don't accidentally discharge their weapons. :-)


As to the other stuff - too many issues to discuss at once. I will check out the link later. From what you say it sounds like the exceptionally bad case.

'I didn't see the thing about the National Guard.'


it was on local tv and i saw streaming video of it off it cnn website.


basically they did a roadside checkpoint, but when instead of police, national guard would point pretty nasty guns at you and 'ask' if they could search your car for national safety or whatever. dont know if anyone resisted.


by the way, these military checkpoints (with arrests, police are there if arrests are necessary) have been going on since at least early 1990's, for training purposes (with actual arrests made, btw) but havent been publicized until now.


brad


p.s. for what its worth, i really dont think these developements are a danger to liberty *at the present moment*. an analogy would be prepositioning supplies and equipment prior to a military campaign. but i truly believe that the infrastructure is being erected (just look at microchips, how many people do you think will have them in 5 years, 20 years, 50 years.) right now which will pretty much turn this country 180 degrees from its roots within a generation.

I checked out the link and read a little of the brief filed by that organization. The brief didn't seem too well written, I think it needed the context of the other briefs filed in the case. I tried to check out the opinion on the 8th Circuit website, but couldn't get that to work either. The summary of the opinion said the Court held that forced medication could only be ordered to restore competency. That is a relatively limited purpose and is very unlikely to lead to drugging of very many defendants. Remember, if there is a bias in the law, it is to say criminal defendants are competent even if mentally ill. (Standard is essentially that defendant understand the proceedings and be able to assist in his own defense. If he can understand what a trial is and tell his attorney he didn't do it, he will likely be found competent even though he is mentally ill.) So anybody competent can't be drugged. At least where I am, when a defendant is committed for competency restoration, he goes to a relatively non-secure mental hospital. If he's not a big physical threat to others he will get to hang out on a campus, take meds, pick up members of the opposite sex, and go on the occasional excursion. That is not to say we have adequate facilities or treatment for the mentally ill by any means, but it is not necessarily horrible. I still will need to read the whole opinion of the court to have a solid opinion though.

'Remember, if there is a bias in the law, it is to say criminal defendants are competent even if mentally ill. '


well, normally its the defense who says no, im not competent.


what makes this case different, i think, is that its the government who is claiming that the guy is incompetent to stand trial.


i havent really read anything other than just the blurbs. but probably the most interesting thing if you want to read the source material would be the dissenting opinion. (which stated that even if this guy is found guilty he would get less than the 4 1/2 years hes already been in jail/prison)


brad