MEDIA CONTACT: Kathryn Serkes
202.333.3855
kaserkes@att.net
June 16, 2003
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
DOCTORS WIN SUPREME COURT DECISION TO HALT FORCED DRUGGING
Washington, D.C. -- The Association of American Physicians
& Surgeons
("AAPS") has helped stop the forced drugging of a citizen by the federal
government. In a 6-3 decision rendered today, the Supreme Court sided with
AAPS and reversed the order to drug a St. Louis dentist accused of Medicaid
fraud.
Dr. Charles Thomas Sell, never convicted of a crime,
has been held in a
brutal prison for more than five years without a trial. Earlier a federal
district court had ordered the injection of Dr. Sell with mind-altering
drugs against his will, and a divided Court of Appeals for the Eighth
Circuit had affirmed.
"Never did we think our own country would imprison
a peaceful defendant for
more than five years without a trial," commented AAPS General Counsel Andrew
Schlafly. "We are gratified that the Supreme Court sees no justification
in
the record for forcibly drugging him. We used to complain when the
Communists engaged in such tactics. This should not occur in America."
The Court adopted three arguments advanced in AAPS's
amicus curiae brief
before the High Court. First, Dr. Sell's long imprisonment without trial
reduces any interest by the government to drug him. Second, the Court ruled
that the "specific kinds of drugs at issue may matter here as elsewhere."
AAPS complained about how the district court had ordered drugging without
limitation on quantity and type. Third, courts must consider less intrusive
alternatives to forced drugging, as another appellate court had done.
Dr. Sell, a dentist, was originally arrested based on
charges of violating
Medicaid regulations in caring for the poor. Had he been tried and
convicted, he would have already served the full term of a sentence.
Even though upholding the drugging, both the district
and appellate courts
admitted that Dr. Sell posed no danger to himself or any others. Yet he has
been imprisoned, often in solitary confinement, under the threat of
unlimited drugging. His treatment in jail has included videotaped scalding
by officials, yet the government refuses to release a complete copy of the
tape. Dr. Sell was featured in an expose on NBC's “Dateline” program
on
June 13th.
NOTE: Background information and the AAPS brief are
posted at
www.aapsonline.org
--------------------
AAPS is a non-partisan professional association of physicians in all
specialties, dedicated since 1943 to the sanctity of the patient-physician
relationship.