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The Supreme Court in their 1986 ruling in Ford v. Wainwright held that executing the insane was a violation of the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The American Medical Association has defined the direct participation in an execution as unethical. On rare occasions, inmates on death row may decompensate and become psychotic to the point that they do not appreciate that they are being punished, why they are being punished, or that they are going to be executed and will die. Psychiatrists who are asked to evaluate or treat these individuals on death row are faced with an uncomfortable ethical dilemma of whether to recommend forcing medications on these individuals. These are the two main viewpoints in this issue.
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