On September 11, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals held (5 – 4) that a tri­al court ille­gal­ly ordered the forcible med­ica­tion of a men­tal­ly ill death row inmate for the pur­pose of ren­der­ing him com­pe­tent to be exe­cut­ed. The case involves Steven Staley, whose men­tal health began to dete­ri­o­rate when he entered death row in 1991. He received an exe­cu­tion date in 2006, but was deemed too ill to be exe­cut­ed. A court ordered that his para­noid schiz­o­phre­nia be treat­ed by forcible med­ica­tion, which con­tin­ued for six years. In its rul­ing, the CCA held that ​“the evi­dence con­clu­sive­ly shows that appel­lan­t’s com­pe­ten­cy to be exe­cut­ed was achieved sole­ly through the invol­un­tary med­ica­tion, which the tri­al court had no author­i­ty to order under the com­pe­ten­cy-to-be-exe­cut­ed statute. The find­ing that appel­lant is com­pe­tent must be reversed for lack of any evi­den­tiary sup­port.” The rul­ing did not address whether the state con­sti­tu­tion for­bids the exe­cu­tion of some­one forcibly drugged or whether the defen­dant in this case is too ill to be exe­cut­ed at all. Read full text of the ruling here.

(J. Smith, ​“Court Rules Judge Didn’t Have Right to Forcibly Medicate Death Row Inmate,” Austin Chronicle, September 11, 2013; Staley v. Texas, No. AP-76,798, Sept. 11, 2013). Courts in Louisiana and South Carolina have held that forcibly med­icat­ing a death row inmate to make him or her com­pe­tent to be exe­cut­ed is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. The U.S. Supreme Court has not ruled on the issue. See Mental Illness.

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