Law Commons^™

Delusions, Moral Incapacity, And The Case For Moral Wrongfulness, E. Lea Johnston

UF Law Faculty Publications

Responsibility is a legal—not medical—construct. However, science can be useful in exposing faulty assumptions underlying current doctrine or practice, illuminating changes in practice or evidentiary standards to better effectuate the law’s animating purpose, and even suggesting updates to legal standards to account for modern understandings of functionalities of concern. This Article uses the science of delusions to assess the law regarding, and practice of establishing, criminal irresponsibility for defendants with psychosis. Over the last two decades, researchers from the cognitive sciences have compiled strong evidence that a host of cognitive and emotional impairments contribute to the origin and maintenance of …

Insanity Defense, Paul H. Robinson, Tyler Scot Williams

All Faculty Scholarship

It is common for criminal law scholars from outside the United States to discuss the “American rule” and compare it to the rule of other countries. As this volume makes clear, however, there is no such thing as an “American rule.” Because each of the states, plus the District of Columbia and the federal system, have their own criminal law, there are fifty-two American criminal codes.

American criminal law scholars know this, of course, but they too commonly speak of the “general rule” as if it reflects some consensus or near consensus position among the states. But the truth is …

Agency And Insanity, Stephen P. Garvey

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This Article offers an unorthodox theory of insanity. According to the traditional theory, insanity is a cognitive or volitional incapacity arising from a mental disease or defect. As an alternative to the traditional theory, some commentators have proposed that insanity is an especially debilitating form of irrationality. Each of these theories faces fair-minded objections. In contrast to these theories, this Article proposes that a person is insane if and because he lacks a sense of agency. The theory of insanity it defends might therefore be called the lost-agency theory.

According to the lost-agency theory, a person lacks a sense of …

God Said To Abraham/Kill Me A Son: Why The Insanity Defense And The Incompetency Status Are Compatible With And Required By The Convention On The Rights Of Persons With Disabilities And Basic Principles Of Therapeutic Jurisprudence, Michael L. Perlin

Articles & Chapters

Interpretations of the General Comments to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) — that command the abolition of the insanity defense and the incompetency status — make no theoretical or conceptual sense, disregard the history of how society has treated persons with serious mental disabilities who are charged with crime, and will lead to predictable torture of this population in prison, at the hands of both prison guards and other prisoners. Such interpretation also flies in the face of every precept of therapeutic jurisprudence. Support of this position exhibits a startling lack of understanding of the …

Dangerous Psychopaths: Criminally Responsible But Not Morally Responsible, Subject To Criminal Punishment And To Preventive Detention, Ken M. Levy

Journal Articles

How should we judge psychopaths, both morally and in the criminal justice system? This Article will argue that psychopaths are generally not morally responsible for their bad acts simply because they cannot understand, and therefore be guided by, moral reasons.

Scholars and lawyers who endorse the same conclusion automatically tend to infer from this premise that psychopaths should not be held criminally punishable for their criminal acts. These scholars and lawyers are making this assumption (that just criminal punishment requires moral responsibility) on the basis of one of two deeper assumptions: that either criminal punishment directly requires moral responsibility or …

The Conviction Of Andrea Yates: A Narrative Of Denial, Sherry F. Colb

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

A Healer Or An Executioner: The Proper Role Of A Psychiatrist In A Criminal Justice System, Gregory Dolin

All Faculty Scholarship

This article argues that despite the benefits of ridding the criminal justice system of some uncertainty and ignorance with respect to mental health issues, the very close involvement of psychiatrists in the criminal justice system as practiced in the United States is not only illogical and bad policy, but also unethical from the viewpoint of medical ethics. Part II of this article will lay the groundwork for the argument by discussing the history of the insanity defense, and of science's involvement with criminal justice; while Part III, will look into the association of science and the administration of justice in …

The Integrationist Alternative To The Insanity Defense: Reflections On The Exculpatory Scope Of Mental Illness In The Wake Of The Andrea Yates Trial, Christopher Slobogin

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

On June 20, 2001, Andrea Yates took the lives of her five children by drowning them, one by one, in a bathtub. At her trial on capital murder charges nine months later, she pleaded insanity. Despite very credible evidence that she had long suffered from serious mental disorder, a Texas jury convicted Yates of murder and sentenced her to life in prison. Her tragic and controversial case led many to question whether the so-called "M'Naghten" test for insanity, which forms the basis for the insanity defense in Texas, adequately defines the exculpatory effect of mental disorder. This article is based …

An End To Insanity: Recasting The Role Of Mental Disability In Criminal Cases, Christopher Slobogin

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This article argues that mental illness should no longer be the basis for a special defense of insanity. Instead, mental disorder should be considered in criminal cases only if relevant to other excuse doctrines, such as lack of mens rea, self-defense and duress, as those defenses have been defined under modern subjectively-oriented codes. With the advent of these subjectively defined doctrines (a development which, ironically, took place during the same period that insanity formulations expanded), the insanity defense has outlived its usefulness, normatively and practically. Modern official formulations of the defense are overbroad because, fairly construed, they exculpate the vast …

Corrections Law: The Supreme Court And Treatment In Correctional And Forensic Mental Health Facilities: Recent Trends And Decisions, Michael L. Perlin

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

An Analysis Of Public Attitudes Toward The Insanity Defense, Valerie P. Hans

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Results from a public opinion survey of knowledge, attitudes, and support for the insanity defense indicate that people dislike the insanity defense for both retributive and utilitarian reasons: they want insane law-breakers punished, and they believe that insanity defense procedures fail to protect the public. However, people vastly overestimate the use and success of the insanity plea. Several attitudinal and demographic variables that other researchers have found to be associated with people's support for the death penalty and perceptions of criminal sentencing are also related to support for the insanity defense. Implications for public policy are discussed.

Whose Right Is It Anyway?: Rethinking Competency To Stand Trial In Light Of The Synthetically Sane Insanity Defendant, Linda C. Fentiman

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This article's thesis is that given the magnitude of the insanity defendant's fundamental constitutional liberties--his constitutional right to present and conduct his defense, his privilege against self-incrimination, his constitutional right to privacy and bodily integrity, and his common law right to give informed consent to medical treatment--the state's interest in assuring the defendant's competency must give way if he chooses to waive his right to be tried while competent. Most, if not all, of the purposes of the prohibition against trying an incompetent defendant can be met even if the defendant is tried without psychotropic medication as long as he …

Introduction To Debate (Between N. Morris And R. Bonnie): Should The Insanity Defense Be Abolished?, Joel J. Finer

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

The author introduces a debate between Professor Norval Morris and Professor Richard Bonnie on the insanity defense.

"Guilty But Mentally Ill": The Real Verdict Is Guilty, Linda C. Fentiman

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This article will first explore the reasons for the controversy over the insanity defense to provide insights, both historical and contemporary, into the purposes and functions of that defense. A brief examination will be made of judicial decisions in the last twenty years, which have largely, but not completely, eliminated the distinctions drawn historically between the "civilly" and "criminally" mentally ill. The article will then examine the growing numbers of "Guilty But Mentally Ill" (GBMI) laws, with some emphasis upon the Michigan statute as the archetypal GBMI law. It will be argued that the GBMI laws are fatally flawed in …

The Guilty But Mentally Ill Verdict: An Idea Whose Time Should Not Have Come, Christopher Slobogin

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The guilty but mentally ill verdict has received increasing attention. Several states had already passed or were seriously considering legislation establishing a guilty but mentally ill verdict before John Hinckley's 1982 acquittal vaulted the idea into national prominence. Today at least twelve states have adopted some version of the verdict and perhaps twenty others have considered or are considering similar statutes.

Yet despite the popularity of the guilty but mentally ill scheme, the American Bar Association's Criminal Justice Mental Health Standards, the American Psychiatric Association Statement on the Insanity Defense,' and the National Mental Health Association's Commission on the Insanity …

The Sounds Of Silence: Can Post-Miranda Silence Be Used To Rebut An Insanity Defense, Michael L. Perlin

Other Publications

No abstract provided.

Ake V. Oklaboma, Lewis F. Powell Jr.

Supreme Court Case Files

No abstract provided.

Public Opinion Of Forensic Psychiatry Following The Hinckley Verdict, Dan Slater, Valerie P. Hans

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The authors obtained opinions of forensic psychiatry in a community survey following the not guilty by reason of insanity verdict in the Hinckley trial. A majority of respondents expressed little or no confidence in the specific psychiatric testimony in the Hinckley trial and only modest faith in the general ability of psychiatrists to determine legal insanity. Respondents' general and specific attitudes were strongly related. Younger people and women were more positive in their views of psychiatry in the courtroom.

"Plain Crazy:" Lay Definitions Of Legal Insanity, Valerie P. Hans, Dan Slater

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The 1982 Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity (NGRI) verdict in the trial of John Hinckley, Jr., would-be assassin of President Reagan, again has brought to the forefront long-standing public dissatisfaction in the United States with the insanity plea. In the wake of the Hinckley verdict, proposals for reform or abolition of the insanity defense have been submitted to both houses of the U.S. Congress and to state legislatures throughout the nation (Cunningham, 1983). Fueling this reform movement is apparent public dissatisfaction with the insanity plea as it is currently defined.

In contrast to voluminous literature concerning legal and psychiatric …

John Hinckley, Jr. And The Insanity Defense: The Public's Verdict, Valerie P. Hans, Dan Slater

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Public furor over the Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity verdict in the trial of John Hinckley, Jr. already has stimulated legal changes in the insanity defense. This study documents more systematically the dimensions of negative public opinion concerning the Hinckley verdict. A survey of Delaware residents shortly after the trial's conclusion indicated that the verdict was perceived as unfair, Hinckley was viewed as not insane, the psychiatrists' testimony at the trial was not trusted, and the vast majority thought that the insanity defense was a loophole. However, survey respondents were unable to define the legal test for insanity and …

The Insanity Defense: Guilty By Reason Of Hinckley?, Bruce Berner

Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Comments And Casenotes: To Kill A Mockingbird - Star Decisis And M'Naghten In Maryland, Kenneth Lasson

All Faculty Scholarship

There are certain pillars of jurisprudence which, despite the erosive elements of time and progress, remain sacred. After more than a century of judicial dialogue the venerable M'Naghten Rule survives as the prevailing test to determine criminal responsibility. The rule states: "To establish a defense on the ground of insanity, it must be clearly proved that, at the time of the committing of the act, the party accused was labouring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing; or if he did know …

Psychiatry And Criminal Responsibility, Jerome Hall

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

People V. Daugherty, Jesse W. Carter

Jesse Carter Opinions

First-degree murder conviction was upheld when the intent to torture was established and the jury dismissed the insanity defense when the defendant failed to establish his insanity by a preponderance of the evidence.

Coyle V. The Commonwealth, Henry W. Rogers

Articles

"Homicidal mania must be proved, not assumed, nor confounded with reckless frenzy; To instruct, however, that it must be proved by 'clearly preponderating evidence' is error. All the authorities require is that the evidence proving it should 'fairly' preponderate.

"An attempt at suicide is not of itself evidence of insanity, and raises no legal presumption thereof....

"It was clearly proved that Coyle killed Emily Myers. That fact is admitted. The only defence set up is that he was insane at the time."