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Full-Text Articles in Law
Dangerous Diagnoses, Risky Assumptions, And The Failed Experiment Of "Sexually Violent Predator" Commitment, Deirdre M. Smith
Dangerous Diagnoses, Risky Assumptions, And The Failed Experiment Of "Sexually Violent Predator" Commitment, Deirdre M. Smith
Faculty Publications
In its 1997 opinion, Kansas v. Hendricks, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a law that reflected a new model of civil commitment. The targets of this new commitment law were dubbed “Sexually Violent Predators” (SVPs), and the Court upheld indefinite detention of these individuals on the assumption that there is a psychiatrically distinct class of individuals who, unlike typical recidivists, have a mental condition that impairs their ability to refrain from violent sexual behavior. And, more specifically, the Court assumed that the justice system could reliably identify the true “predators,” those for whom this unusual and extraordinary deprivation of liberty …
The Disordered And Discredited Plaintiff: Psychiatric Evidence In Civil Litigation, Deirdre M. Smith
The Disordered And Discredited Plaintiff: Psychiatric Evidence In Civil Litigation, Deirdre M. Smith
Faculty Publications
This Article closely examines civil defendants' use of evidence of a plaintiff's alleged current or prior psychiatric diagnosis or treatment by analyzing and critiquing the three primary rationales offered in support of the relevancy of such evidence: to suggest an alternative or underlying cause of the plaintiff's alleged psychological injuries; to impeach the plaintiff's credibility by asserting that a mental illness interferes with her ability to recount or to perceive events accurately; and to reveal certain propensities that inform how the plaintiff likely acted with respect to the events at issue in the litigation. I note that, while attaching a …