Gentlemen of the jury, I present to you a decision. A decision that you must make correctly, considering the laws and standards we must uphold in this nation… A decision that cannot be influenced by anything other than your ethical, American, beliefs. This decision will act as a final ruling of what you believe occurred across several months, involving numerous patients and the irresponsible actions of Miss Ratched shaping the operation of Oregon State Mental Hospital. Across these months three deaths have occurred under the security of Oregon State, deaths caused by the Nurse’s depraved indifference to human life. Miss Ratched has demonstrated across the evidence presented, her need of control over colleagues and patients across the entire facility, disregarding her medical responsibilities and ultimately disregarding her Hippocratic Oath. This oath, taken by all physicians swearing by a number of healing gods in order to medically practise, states that practitioners must uphold specific ethical standards at all times. The accused prevailed her obsessive tendencies1 over the Hippocratic Oath, and as a government funded institute, in a country of a paramount calibre, it is expected that the highest degree of professional care be taken to ensure the best possible outcome for any American citizen.

Three deaths have recently occurred at the ward, two of these, suicides… Medical reports determined that the death of Randle McMurphy – an awarded sharpshooter in the American military – had occurred after a failed lobotomy ordered by a control fuelled Miss Ratched. Under regular circumstances, Dr. Spivey should order such treatment, but testimonies of nearly every patient determine that in the ward, the nurse is the authority figure, ordering treatments and medication. Randle was a patient who did not enter the hospital in a regular fashion; he was sane, and opted to be under the care of the state hospital. Randle did not sit well in the nurse’s little haven2, he could not be categorised with the “vegetables”3 or the other emotionally drained patients of the ward. However medical reports provided by the hospital, describe a patient much like McMurphy - a patient who challenged her inhumane value for human life – had also undergone lobotomy treatment. Maxwell Taber, a “manipulator”4 questioned the nurse’s decisions, doubting her judgement; he was one of the few patients who even had the ability to question her. Following in the fate of Taber, Randle’s very actions did not see him live, Mrs Ratched, playing God once more, ordered the lobotomy – a suitable treatment for a sane being in the twisted ward of Oregon State Hospital.

The Declaration of Independence states, “All men are created equal and there are certain unalienable rights should never violate. These rights include the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”5. Liberty, by definition, means that you are free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on ones behaviour. By definition, isn’t that exactly what has been taking place at the Oregon State Mental Hospital? She was playing God with these men, manipulating an entire ward to her satisfaction; pretending to help people by and for the common democratic good, but served only the tyranny of the mediocre majority and the management of the institute that supported the practice for its own purpose. Stripping every single man in that ward down to just his physical features, Mildrid Ratched vilified her oath, her Duty of Care, and the lives of these men.

Is the evidence of Nurse Ratched’s wrong doing not just? To have depraved