Illegal Psychiatric Dispositions, Forced Drugging, and the Mentally Ill

Mental health professionals are some of the most important professionals in the American legal system.  Specifically, these professionals, at times, have more authority in our judicial system than attorneys or judges because of their expertise and ability to provide the courts and jury with information that the legal processors do not have.  Yet in some cases these professionals have been bought, or sold themselves, to the array of judiciaries within our country; however, this is not to say that it is entirely their fault or that they are deliberately performing biased actions within the courts in the United States of America – we are living in a capitalistic society, I suppose that this is a reasonable excuse (not really). 

Given that fact that we have an adversarial process, as well as large scale operations of mandated evaluations, the courts have summoned these professionals for assistance, however procedural law and financial prosperity has become the “stick in the mud” that prevents reasonable completions of court processes or adequate medical examinations.  Some legal contrivances seek out these professionals and use their expertise to their advantage; for example, when a prosecutor or state court has a professional enter a courtroom to testify and use their expertise to cater to the position or stance that the prosecutor is attempting to deliver, and the defense attorneys do the same thing with their hired experts.  Another example can be delivered with the basic understanding of cross examination, which basically comes down to which side of the courtroom is asking the right questions to have a verdict sway in their favor.  Where is the random pool of mental health specialists that is needed for neutrality in our court system?

Labeling and forced drugging are other dilemmas the courts and mental health professionals have ascertained in the legal world too.  Particularly, some mental health specialists diagnose a person without any direct communication, or through a brief interview, with the person who has brought their professionalism about and, in turn, infer that medications can be used or must be used.  Deeming someone as mentally ill without proper standards and then forcing medication on them is ridiculous and extremely intrusive, especially if the evaluation is briefly done or not done at all.  Mental illnesses certainly exist, and medication can help a person, however the diagnoses and prescriptions have to meet ethical standards and should not be used as a method to get a paycheck or to utilize the courts in order to seem professional.  The discourse in the American court system has become a procedure that is based on who can hire the best professionals, which brings a popular song to my mind, a song that states "if you got the money, honey, we got your disease."  Terrible.  What happened to justice?