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The Unabomber Revisited: Reexamining The Use Of Mental Disorder Diagnoses As Evidence Of The Mental Condition Of Criminal Defendants, Adam K. Magid

Indiana Law Journal

This Article revisits a longstanding debate concerning the appropriateness of diagnostic evidence in criminal cases in which a defendant’s mental condition is at issue. As illustrated through a case study of Theodore Kaczynski, more widely known as the “Unabomber,” a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia poses a risk of confounding a judge or jury attempting to ascertain an accurate picture of the mental state of a criminal defendant, specifically by (i) suggesting symptoms not actually present, (ii) creating a distorted picture of symptoms that are present, and (iii) suggesting organic, determinative factors as the mechanism behind a defendant’s actions, even where …

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The Street Perspective: A Conversation With The Police, Patrick L. Baude

IUSTITIA

Professor Baude's purpose in this discussion is to elicit police officers' comments on what members of the legal profession ought to know about the influence of the "street perspective" in shaping those officers' attitudes towards the criminal justice system and the role they play in it. It is police insistence on the broad validity of insights which only "the street" can provide that accounts for the considerable gulf between "front-line" enforcement officers and other functionaries in (and students of) that system. Law students (and no doubt lawyers) seem uncomfortable with the notion that our system cannot adequately be understood without …

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