Salt Lake City, USA - The Utah Supreme Court on Friday upheld a judge’s order that the woman accused of aiding in the 2002 kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart be forcibly medicated for mental illness.
The woman, Wanda Barzee, 62, has fought the forced administration of antipsychotic drugs, saying through her lawyers that the medication is against her religion.
A district judge ordered forced medication in June 2006.
Ms. Barzee has been deemed incompetent to stand trial three times. She and her estranged husband, Brian D. Mitchell, face multiple felony charges in the abduction of Ms. Smart.
Eight mental health professionals have evaluated Ms. Barzee and agree she suffers from a psychotic disorder and persecutory and grandiose delusions, including believing that God speaks to her through a television set. Evaluators have said the chance of restoring Ms. Barzee’s competency with medication is 20 percent to 70 percent.
In its 3-to-2 decision Friday, the court said the district court’s finding that it was likely that Ms. Barzee’s competency could be restored was not “clearly erroneous,” and should therefore stand.
Chief Justice Christine Durham dissented, saying that she believed restoration was not likely and that she found it “impermissible for the State to intrude upon Ms. Barzee’s federal constitutional liberty interest in freedom from unwanted medications.”
It is unclear when the treatment would begin. The Department of Human Services, which oversees the state mental hospital where Ms. Barzee is housed, must first review the court’s ruling with the Utah attorney general’s office and then talk with doctors about a treatment plan, said the deputy director of the department, Mark Ward.
Ms. Barzee’s Salt Lake City lawyer, Scott Williams, was out of his office and not immediately available for comment.
Ms. Smart, 20, was taken from the bedroom of her Salt Lake City home in June 2002, when she was 14, and found nine months later with Ms. Barzee and Mr. Mitchell, a homeless man who had once worked as a day laborer at the house. Ms. Barzee and Mr. Mitchell are charged with kidnapping, sexual assault, burglary and conspiracy to commit kidnapping.
In 2004, Ms. Barzee filed for divorce from Mr. Mitchell, who has also been found incompetent to stand trial. He is also being held at the state mental hospital and has refused medications.