[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit [official website] Tuesday ruled [PDF text] that the government can require convicts to receive injections of anti-psychotic medication as a condition of their supervised release. Philip Holman repeatedly failed to abide by a condition of his supervised release that required him to take oral anti-psychotic drugs. A federal court in Virginia ordered that Holman should instead receive injections, but Holman claimed that the injections violated his due process rights under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments [text], arguing they were not medically necessary and that less intrusive alternatives existed. The Fourth Circuit held:

The evidence establishing Holman’s dangerousness also establishes that the district court’s order was narrowly tailored to the circumstances of this case. As the district court noted, Holman became a danger to himself and others when he was off his medication, and injections of long-lasting antipsychotic drugs provide the only means of insuring that Holman takes his medication. The special condition of supervised release thus significantly furthers and is clearly necessary to further the government’s interests in protecting Holman and the public.