A recent arti­cle by Professors Brian D. Shannon (pic­tured) of Texas Tech and Victor R. Scarano of the University of Houston exam­ines the eth­i­cal impli­ca­tions of forcibly med­icat­ing men­tal­ly incom­pe­tent death-row inmates in order to pre­pare them for exe­cu­tion. According to the authors, this issue, par­tic­u­lary in Texas, pits ​“the eth­i­cal duties of the med­ical and legal pro­fes­sions in oppo­si­tion and casts a shad­ow over the legit­i­mate and appro­pri­ate inten­tions and pro­fes­sion­al respon­si­bil­i­ties of physi­cians and lawyers.” While the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that men­tal­ly incom­pe­tent pris­on­ers can­not be exe­cut­ed, only low­er courts have ruled on the ques­tion of forc­ing death row inmates to take med­ica­tion with the pur­pose of ren­der­ing them com­pe­tent for exe­cu­tion. The arti­cle con­cludes with a leg­isla­tive rec­om­men­da­tion that would solve the eth­i­cal dilem­ma of forcible med­ica­tion: “[U]pon a deter­mi­na­tion by the tri­al court that the defen­dant is incom­pe­tent to be exe­cut­ed (and fol­low­ing any appeal), the court should vacate the death sen­tence and sub­sti­tute a life sen­tence with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole,” thus allow­ing psy­chi­a­trists to ​“pro­ceed to treat the symp­toms of the inmate’s seri­ous men­tal ill­ness, with­out the eth­i­cal con­cern that such treat­ment could lead to the inmate’s execution.”

(B. Shannon and V. Scarano, ​“Incompetency to Be Executed: Continuing Ethical Challenges & Time for a Change in Texas,” 45 Texas Tech Law Review _​_​_​(2013)). See Mental Illness and Death Row. Listen to DPIC’s pod­cast on Mental Illness.

Citation Guide