The State Supreme Court ruling could make it easier for some mentally ill defendants to return to the community without facing trial.
It held, 6 to 3, that the Constitution limits the state's ability to forcibly medicate a mentally ill defendant to make him competent to stand trial.
Taking a mentally ill defendant off anti-psychotic medication during a trial is an unusual legal tactic that divides lawyers and psychiatrists.
But the defense may gamble that the image of a frightened and disoriented mentally ill defendant breaking down on the witness stand is their best hope.
But letting a mentally ill defendant who is off medication testify - ethical and medical considerations aside - is enormously unpredictable.
In two cases, the Court gave mentally ill criminal defendants new constitutional protections.
New laws in the dozen states allowed juries to find a defendant "guilty but mentally ill."
The court placed strict limits on the government's ability to force mentally ill defendants to accept medication in order to become competent to stand trial.
How can the judicial system overlook the basic instinct of a mentally ill defendant to insist that he is not ill?
An experimental court intended to give certain mentally ill criminal defendants treatment instead of jail time will open officially in Brooklyn today.