Texas Judge Orders Forced Anti-Psychotic Meds to Proceed with Execution

From Findlaw.com: FORT WORTH, Texas (AP)- A judge who halted an execution because the inmate was mentally ill has agreed to force the man to take anti-psychotic medication so he can be put to death. The inmate, Steven Kenneth Staley, 43, has refused to take his medication. A jury decided he should be put to death for the killing of a Fort Worth restaurant manager during a botched robbery. Judge Wayne Salvant issued the forced-medication order Tuesday, while Staley picked at his unruly hair and mumbled nonsensical phrases in the courtroom. The order, requested by prosecutors, drew a sharp argument from Staley's attorney. "The whole idea of holding somebody down and injecting them so that we can then say, with a straight face, this person is now competent so we can kill them, I think that smacks of an Orwellian-Soviet-style approach to criminal justice," Jack Strickland told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. More. . . [Mark Godsey]