Mental Health Entries on Will Brady's website

2 april 02 | Dubya Inc. pushing forced treatment | CT Legislators, involuntary meds and legal competency sense of dignity

NEWS -- MINDFREEDOM EXCLUSIVE -- March 29, 2002
Bush vs. Psychiatric Survivors/Mental Health Consumers?:
Bush Reportedly About to Appoint Extremist Psychiatrist Sally Satel to Key Position.

      WASHINGTON, D.C.: President George W. Bush is about to appoint extremist psychiatrist Sally Satel to the advisory board of the USA Center for Mental Health Services, according to several reliable sources.
     Author Sally Satel is an American Enterprise Institute psychiatrist whose own web site, book, interviews and speeches directly attack the very idea of mental health consumers and psychiatric survivors organizing for self-determination and their human rights.
     So what is Dr. Sally Satel's plan? She has widely promoted the involuntary psychiatric drugging of thousands of more Americans, including Americans living out in the community in their own homes.
     The report of Satel's pending appointment comes on the heels of Bush's recently-proposed budget that calls for 100 percent "termination" of mental health consumer technical assistance centers.
      Concerned activists are calling for emergency e-mail campaign to relevant White House officials. Jennifer Sheehy is leaving next week and Katy Hayes will be her replacement. Their e-mail addresses:
      Jennifer_C._Sheehy@opd.eop.gov and
      Katherine_J._Hayes@who.eop.gov.
      E-mail to President George W. Bush: president@whitehouse.gov
      Call, fax or write White House:http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

CT State Legislature | Legal competency | involuntary meds | Bill HR 5516, creates some fundamental changes in the "54-56d" statutes. These are statutes which allow for people to be locked up PRE-TRIAL for as long as 18 months for the purpose of determining whether or not someone is "competent" to stand trial.
     Except in this case, competence¹ applies only to whether or not the accused can "understand the workings of the court" and if a person is able to "assisting in one's own defense".
     Of immediate concern is the fact that a whole new provision has been added which would allow for a person to be forcibly medicated during the pre-trial competency evaluation phase. Granting discretionary authority to mandate this forced medication is given to three state agencies.
     Perhaps most disappointing with this bill is that the change proposed doesn't question whether or not the current law violates the US Constitution's 14^th amendment. Oh, I understand the rationale for the bill. The intent is to place folks who have severe psychiatric problems outside the Department of Corrections and into mental health facilities to help determine whether or not a person is mentally stable enough to stand trial for outstanding criminal charges.
     Mind you, some aspects of this bill would take clinical decision making out of the hands of individual criminal court judges (where it should not be) and place granting the authorization of involuntary medication in the probate court arena, where it currently already exists for people in in-patient settings. But the bill does not clarify whether or not forced medication of a person would be done in the community as well as in a hospital, and in that respect, the bill is flawed ~badly!
     When officals are looking at placing someone on potent mind altering drugs ~even legally prescribed ones~ it should not be done out on the streets. A person being prescribed medications that are identified variously as having side effects which include a blunting of mental alertness, disorientation, involuntary muscle movements, occasionally~ seizures, and other adverse effects, ought to be conducted in a controlled setting, where the individual's progress can be monitored.
     I'm all in favor of removing clinical decision making from unqualified persons, and I heartily endorse separating providing clinical care from determining legal competency, but it needs be done ~first and foremost~ with attention paid to the accused's medical safety.

¹ Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary: [def] COMPETENT: Having requisite or adequate ability ot qualities: legally qualified or adequate: having the capacity to function in a particular way
Essentially, competence generally applies to the ability to make certain decisions about one's life, such as financial or personal care decisions.
In the legislation that is being revised, Connecticut General Statutes section 54-56d it is legally assumed that "a defendant is not competent if he is unable to understand the proceedings against him or to assist in his own defense"