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James C Oleson

2008

General Law

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The Insanity Of Genius: Criminal Culpability And Right-Tail Psychometrics, James C. Oleson Oct 2008

The Insanity Of Genius: Criminal Culpability And Right-Tail Psychometrics, James C. Oleson

James C Oleson

The article bridges criminology, criminal law, and penology by relating what little is known about the crimes of genius to the 2002 case Atkins v. Virginia. Noting that the IQ of the borderline genius is precisely as far from the mean as the IQ of the person with borderline mental retardation, it asks whether there are penological implications to high IQ. The article first asks whether geniuses should be punished like everyone else, then asks whether they should be punished more than others, and finally asks whether they should be punished less than others.

Most geniuses, I suggest, should be …