23-c-5 A Prisoner's Right to Psychiatric Care

• Library: A Jailhouse Lawyer's Manual (2020 Edition)

23-C-5. A Prisoner's Right to Psychiatric Care

This Section gives you a short summary of your right to psychiatric (mental health) care, including your right to refuse treatment. For more information, you should read Chapter 29 of the JLM, "Special Issues for Prisoners with Mental Illness."

You have the same right to mental health care that you have to physical health care. Most courts recognize that there is no difference between a prisoner's right to physical treatment and his right to mental health treatment.¹³⁰ However, your right to mental health care may only include treatment that is necessary and that will not cost an unreasonable amount of money or take an unreasonable amount of time.¹³¹ Nonetheless, some courts have held that an increased level of care is necessary for mental health patients. For example, courts may require a minimum number of acute-care (active, short-term care for a severe injury or illness), intermediate-care beds, and specialized physicians on staff at all times.¹³² In 2011, the United States Supreme Court upheld a "remedial order" (a court order requiring someone to comply with a duty) issued by a court in California that requires prisons to provide adequate resources to prisoners with mental disorders.¹³³

If you believe your right to mental health care has been violated, you can make an Eighth Amendment claim of deliberate indifference against prison officials. For example, the relatives of a Georgia prisoner who committed suicide sued the state for deliberate indifference.¹³⁴ The prisoner had a history of mental illness and took anti-depressants, but the prison psychiatrist stopped his medications.¹³⁵ When a prison official learned the prisoner was thinking about suicide, the official did not do anything. The court found that these events could establish deliberate indifference to the prisoner's health in violation of the Eighth Amendment.

(a) Right to Refuse Psychiatric Treatment

You also have a limited right to refuse mental health treatment. In Washington v. Harper, the Supreme Court used a "rational basis test" (a test to determine whether the government's action was reasonably related to a legitimate goal)¹³⁶ to decide whether a prison could require a prisoner to undergo psychiatric treatment.¹³⁷ The Court held that if the prison's actions are reasonably related...