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Opinion of the Court
dents, Harper, supra, and Riggins v. Nevada, 504 U. S. 127 (1992), set forth the framework for determining the legal answer.
In Harper, this Court recognized that an individual has a "significant" constitutionally protected "liberty interest" in "avoiding the unwanted administration of antipsychotic drugs." 494 U. S., at 221. The Court considered a state law authorizing forced administration of those drugs "to inmates who are . . . gravely disabled or represent a significant danger to themselves or others." Id., at 226. The State had established "by a medical finding" that Harper, a mentally ill prison inmate, had "a mental disorder . . . which is likely to cause harm if not treated." Id., at 222. The treatment decision had been made "by a psychiatrist," it had been approved by "a reviewing psychiatrist," and it "ordered" medication only because that was "in the prisoner's medical interests, given the legitimate needs of his institutional confinement." Ibid.
The Court found that the State's interest in administering medication was "legitima[te]" and "importan[t]," id., at 225; and it held that "the Due Process Clause permits the State to treat a prison inmate who has a serious mental illness with antipsychotic drugs against his will, if the inmate is dangerous to himself or others and the treatment is in the inmate's medical interest," id., at 227. The Court concluded that, in the circumstances, the state law authorizing involuntary treatment amounted to a constitutionally permissible "accommodation between an inmate's liberty interest in avoiding the forced administration of antipsychotic drugs and the State's interests in providing appropriate medical treatment to reduce the danger that an inmate suffering from a serious mental disorder represents to himself or others." Id., at 236.
In Riggins, the Court repeated that an individual has a constitutionally protected liberty "interest in avoiding involuntary administration of antipsychotic drugs"—an interest
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