Ake v Oklahoma in the United States
Ake v Oklahoma
Ake v. Oklahoma, court case decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, in 1985, concerned with the right of indigent defendants to basic materials needed for an adequate defense. The case was an appeal of the conviction of Glen Ake, a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic, who had been denied psychiatric assistance by the court during his trial. In the 1985 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that Ake had not been granted due process because his condition, which could have been remedied by treatment, had helped to determine his sentence. The ruling, which required court-appointed psychiatrists for indigent defendants, was based on the same constitutional grounds used in an earlier decision, which ruled to guarantee court-appointed attorneys. (1)