[MF-NYS-NEWS] NEWS: New York State & Forced Electroshock

[David Oaks]

MindFreedom New York - PLEASE FORWARD
http://www.mindfreedom.org

BELOW is a news release about an important hearing in front of New  
York State's High Court on 31 May 2007 about FORCED ELECTROSHOCK.

BELOW news release can also be found at:

http://www.mindfreedom.org/kb/mental-health-abuse/electroshock/simone-d

Receiving hundreds of forced electroshocks for years against the  
expressed wishes of the subject is becoming the "norm" for some  
mental health clients in New York State psychiatric institutions,  
says attorney Dennis Feld. In this news release Mr. Feld announces he  
will be arguing for the right of his client -- Simone D. -- to resist  
more forced electroshock in a New York State High Court.

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NEWS RELEASE - immediate release

Simone D. appeal

Forced electroshock to be debated at New York State High Court

from Dennis Feld, Deputy Director of New York State Mental Hygiene  
Legal Service (MHLS)

On Thursday, May 31, 2007, New York State's High Court, the Court of  
Appeals in Albany, will hear argument for the first time on the  
subject of ECT, and in the Simone D. appeal, its involuntary  
administration.

Twenty-one years after that Court issued it's seminal ruling in  
Rivers v. Katz, dealing with the involuntary administration of  
psychotropic medication, the Court will finally entertain another  
appeal regarding forcible psychiatric treatment.

The stakes are extremely high, especially with the State Office of  
Mental Health vigorously, and without shame, pursuing the practice of  
involuntary maintenance shock where the performance of over 200 to  
300 shocks on an individual patient over the course of that person's  
stay at the State hospital (usually involving several years) is more  
the norm than the rare exception.

An Amicus brief will likely be filed on behalf of Simone D. John  
Gresham, of New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, will be  
authoring it with NARPA [National Association for Rights Protection  
and Advocacy], Bazelon, and a few other organizations joining as amici.

John's medical research shows that the efficacy of such high numbers  
of shock is questioned by the psychiatrists in the U.S. and rejected  
by their colleagues in England. And John quotes ECT proponent Harold  
Sackheim regarding cognitive damage following even an acute series of  
shock.

Of course, the story of Simone D. as a human being facing a lifetime  
of ECT, with little or no chance of remission or discharge from her  
involuntary stay at the hospital, is not lost either in John's  
proposed brief or the main Appellant's Brief filed by her counsel,  
Mental Hygiene Legal Service and crafted by Kim Darrow with my  
assistance.

Even if the reversal of the Appellate Division's affirmance of the  
trial court's order authorizing 30 more shocks on Simone D. is  
centered on the more narrow legal issue of the hearing judge's  
limitation on Simone D.'s counsel's cross-examination, including the  
inquiry into the drugs used in ECT to suspend a patient's respiration  
and the FDA's classification of the ECT machine as a dangerous  
medical instrumentality, this would be a great victory and a major  
lost for institutional psychiatry and it's we are free to try  
anything approach.

-- Dennis Feld - dbfeld at courts.state.ny.us

- end of news release -

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Forwarded by http://www.mindfreedom.org