Cite as: 539 U. S. 166 (2003)
Opinion of the Court
restraints and seclusion often not acceptable substitutes for medication).
Regardless, as we have said, we must assume that Sell was not dangerous. And on that hypothetical assumption, we find that the Court of Appeals was wrong to approve forced medication solely to render Sell competent to stand trial. For one thing, the Magistrate's opinion makes clear that he did not find forced medication legally justified on trial competence grounds alone. Rather, the Magistrate concluded that Sell was dangerous, and he wrote that forced medication was "the only way to render the defendant not dangerous and competent to stand trial." App. 335 (emphasis added).
Moreover, the record of the hearing before the Magistrate shows that the experts themselves focused mainly upon the dangerousness issue. Consequently the experts did not pose important questions—questions, for example, about trial-related side effects and risks—the answers to which could have helped determine whether forced medication was warranted on trial competence grounds alone. Rather, the Medical Center's experts conceded that their proposed medications had "significant" side effects and that "there has to be a cost benefit analysis." Id., at 185 (testimony of Dr. DeMier); id., at 236 (testimony of Dr. Wolfson). And in making their "cost-benefit" judgments, they primarily took into account Sell's dangerousness, not the need to bring him to trial.
The failure to focus upon trial competence could well have mattered. Whether a particular drug will tend to sedate a defendant, interfere with communication with counsel, prevent rapid reaction to trial developments, or diminish the ability to express emotions are matters important in determining the permissibility of medication to restore competence, Riggins, 504 U. S., at 142-145 (Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment), but not necessarily relevant when dangerousness is primarily at issue. We cannot tell whether
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