The grassroots campaign to save a man from court-ordered shock therapy

ECT is often given to consenting adults battling severe depression who have exhausted more conventional treatments.

Sometimes doctors seek court orders to perform ECT on unwilling patients.

In states like Minnesota , the procedure can be court-ordered even if patients don't pose a danger to themselves or others.

ECT has been linked to a long list of "serious adverse events," including memory loss.

David Russell was sent to a psychiatric unit in St. Paul , Minnesota , after 17 court-ordered ECT treatments at the Mayo Clinic .

A doctor petitioned the same district court judge who presided over the earlier hearing for more ECT .

Peter Bergen : Russell 's court-appointed attorney "abjectly failed to effectively represent" Russell and "actively acted against" his objectives, he says.

ECT "is no longer indicated nor being recommended as part of the treatment plan for David Russell ," one of the hospital's doctors wrote in a letter to the court.

The court hearing wasn't canceled because the hospital hadn't dropped its petition to add another antipsychotic drug, Clozaril , to Russell 's medication regimen.

The hospital's attorney confessed he wasn't aware he was due in court until just before the start of the hearing.