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I'Ve Got My Mind Made Up: How Judicial Teleology In Cases Involving Biologically Based Evidence Violates Therapeutic Jurisprudence, Michael L. Perlin

Articles & Chapters

Courts are, and have always been, teleological in cases involving litigants with mental disabilities. By “teleological,” I refer to outcome-determinative reasoning; social science that enables judges to satisfy predetermined positions is privileged, while data that would require judges to question such ends are rejected. In this context, judges treat biologically-based evidence in criminal cases involving questions of mental disability law so as to conform to their pre-existing positions. This applies to cases involving questions of the death penalty, the insanity defense, civil competency, incompetency to stand trial, questions related to malingering, and criminal sentencing, and more.

In this paper, I …

'Friend To The Martyr, A Friend To The Woman Of Shame': Thinking About The Law, Shame And Humiliation, Michael L. Perlin, Naomi Weinstein

Articles & Chapters

This paper considers the intersection between law, humiliation and shame, and how the law has the capacity to allow for, to encourage, or (in some cases) to remediate humiliation, or humiliating or shaming behavior. The need for new attention to be paid to this question has increased exponentially as we begin to also take more seriously international human rights mandates, especially – although certainly not exclusively – in the context of the recently-ratified United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, a Convention that calls for “respect for inherent dignity,” and characterizes "discrimination against any person on the …