Cite as: 539 U. S. 166 (2003)
Opinion of the Court
If a court authorizes medication on these alternative grounds, the need to consider authorization on trial competence grounds will likely disappear. Even if a court decides medication cannot be authorized on the alternative grounds, the findings underlying such a decision will help to inform expert opinion and judicial decisionmaking in respect to a request to administer drugs for trial competence purposes. At the least, they will facilitate direct medical and legal focus upon such questions as: Why is it medically appropriate forcibly to administer antipsychotic drugs to an individual who (1) is not dangerous and (2) is competent to make up his own mind about treatment? Can bringing such an individual to trial alone justify in whole (or at least in significant part) administration of a drug that may have adverse side effects, including side effects that may to some extent impair a defense at trial? We consequently believe that a court, asked to approve forced administration of drugs for purposes of rendering a defendant competent to stand trial, should ordinarily determine whether the Government seeks, or has first sought, permission for forced administration of drugs on these other Harper-type grounds; and, if not, why not.
When a court must nonetheless reach the trial competence question, the factors discussed above, supra, at 180-181, should help it make the ultimate constitutionally required judgment. Has the Government, in light of the efficacy, the side effects, the possible alternatives, and the medical appropriateness of a particular course of antipsychotic drug treatment, shown a need for that treatment sufficiently important to overcome the individual's protected interest in refusing it? See Harper, supra, at 221-223; Riggins, supra, at 134-135.
IV
The Medical Center and the Magistrate in this case, applying standards roughly comparable to those set forth here and in Harper, approved forced medication substantially, if not primarily, upon grounds of Sell's dangerousness to oth-
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