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Abstract: 

The world of the civilly committed is a strange place legally. A civilly-committed sex offender is not constitutionally entitled to treatment responsive to his or her mental condition. A convicted prisoner, however, is constitutionally entitled to treatment for a serious mental illness whether or not the illness has some causal relationship to the underlying offense. Here, Eighth Circuit court reviews of the right to treatment claim using the professional judgment standard to deal with the question of how to decide what sort of training is appropriate in individual cases.

Keywords: Youngberg v. Romeo, 457 U.S. 307; Kansas v. Hendricks, 521 U.S. 346; Strutton v. Meade, 668 F.3d 549; County of Sacramento v. Lewis, 523 U.S. 833

Affiliations:  1: Executive Editor.