PMID: 8605411Jan 1, 1995Paper

Denouement of an execution competency case: is Perry pyrrhic?

The Bulletin of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law
D Mossman

Abstract

In October 1992, the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled that that state could not forcibly medicate condemned, mentally ill prisoners to make them competent to be executed. State v. Perry has been seen as a victory for psychiatrists, but the decision contains bad news as well as good: although the Court extricated psychiatrists from having to medicate convicts involuntarily in preparation for their execution, the Court justified its decision by invoking a distortion-filled, highly critical interpretation of standard psychiatric treatment for psychoses. This article summarizes the Perry case and the Court's opinion, describes the perceptions of antipsychotic medication that animated the majority's legal conclusions, and reviews subsequent decisions in which Perry has been influential. The article suggests that Perry's description of pharmacotherapy may not have been motivated by a reasoned view of neuroleptic therapy so much as the Court's desire to uphold the institution of capital punishment. By studying the Perry majority's opinion, psychiatrists can appreciate how certain characterizations or descriptions of psychotic symptoms and antipsychotic therapy lend themselves to distortion and misunderstanding by legal decisionmakers. Re...Continue Reading

Related Concepts

Related Feeds

Antipsychotic Drugs

Antipsychotic drugs are a class of medication primarily used to manage psychosis (including delusions, hallucinations, paranoia or disordered thought), principally in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Discover the latest research on antipsychotic drugs here

Related Papers

The Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law
George F Parker
Seishin shinkeigaku zasshi = Psychiatria et neurologia Japonica
Naoshi Nakajima
© 2021 Meta ULC. All rights reserved