by Sam Howe Verhovek

About the author: Sam Howe Verhovek is a staff writer for the New York Times.

At a hearing in an Arkansas courtroom in April 1998, Charles Singleton basically argued for the right to make a choice: his sanity or his life.

Mr. Singleton, 39, on death row for the 1979 murder of a grocer named Mary Lou York, is on anti-schizophrenia medication, which, the state argues, makes him mentally competent enough to be executed. But Mr. Singleton wants to stop taking the drugs, which could well make him sufficiently delusional that state psychologists would not certify him as ready to be put to death.

“We have to convince the court that you can’t involuntarily medicate to competency if that is what is making him executable,” explains Mr. Singleton...