Sell v. U.S. (Supreme Court, 2003): The Supreme Court determined medication to restore competency to stand trial for serious offenses could be administered involuntarily under certain circumstances. Competency evaluators often must offer an opinion regarding the defendant receiving medication against their will provided it met specific criteria “Sell criteria”, the criteria is essentially adopted from a previous case Riggins v. Nevada (see also Washington v. Harper) regarding forced medication for inmates with mental disorder who became a danger to themselves or others. Sell Criteria includes: (1) An important government issue must be at stake and only a case by case inquiry can determine whether the government’s interest is mitigated by the possibility of a long civil commitment for the treatment of the mental illness or by the fact that long periods of confinement have already been served, as this would be subtracted from any criminal sentence. (2) There must be a substantial probability that the medication will enable the defendant to become competent without substantial undermining side effects. (3) The medication must be necessary to restore the defendant’s competency, with no alternative, less intrusive procedures available that would produce the same results.
Forensic & Psychological Assessments