Maryland Law Review
Volume 71, Issue 1
The Right to Refuse: Should Prison Inmates Be Allowed to Discontinue Treatment for Incurable, Noncommunicable Medical Conditions?
By Daniel R. H. Mendelsohn [Full Text]
71 Md. L. Rev. 295 (2011).
In past cases, prison officials have successfully used speculative security threats and nonspecific claims of system manipulation to force inmates suffering from incurable, noncommunicable conditions to undergo treatment against their will. The Supreme Court of the United States in Turner v. Safley enacted a universal standard of review for constitutional challenges to prison regulations and articulated a doctrine of deference that places the burden on inmates to prove that a specific prison regulation is unconstitutional. But the application of this standard to an inmate’s legitimate request to refuse medical treatment while incarcerated demonstrates its potential for abuse. While designed as a universal standard, the Turner test developed around interpersonal rights that are different in kind from the right to refuse medical treatment.
Courts typically borrow the reasoning used to compel medical treatment from inmate hunger-strike cases, a topic with significantly more jurisprudence. Some courts have incorrectly analogized an inmate’s refusal of medical treatment to situations involving inmate hunger strikes, an inappropriate comparison when considering the two situations’ foundational differences in choice. The unique characteristics of the right to refuse treatment in the prison setting should inspire courts to apply an analysis similar to that used in Stouffer v. Reid and Thor v. Superior Court, where the Maryland and the California courts refused to accept prison officials’ claims of speculative security threats. Applying the Stouffer standard would enable courts to demonstrate an appropriate level of respect for inmates’ personal autonomy while not jeopardizing prison security.
Suggested citation: Daniel R. H. Mendelsohn, The Right to Refuse: Should Prison Inmates Be Allowed to Discontinue Treatment for Incurable, Noncommunicable Medical Conditions?, 71 Md. L. Rev. 295 (2011).
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