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The New Neurobiology Of Severe Psychiatric Disorders And Its Implications For Laws Governing Involuntary Commitment And Treatment, E Fuller Torrey, Kenneth Kress
The New Neurobiology Of Severe Psychiatric Disorders And Its Implications For Laws Governing Involuntary Commitment And Treatment, E Fuller Torrey, Kenneth Kress
ExpressO
Medical advances have led to statutory changes and common law overrulings. This paper argues that such changes are now needed for laws governing the involuntary commitment and treatment of individuals with severe psychiatric disorders. Recent advances in the understanding of the neurobiology of these disorders have rendered obsolete many assumptions underlying past statutes and legal decisions. This is illustrated by using schizophrenia as an example and examining two influential cases: California’s Lanterman-Petris-Short Act (1969) and Wisconsin’s Lessard decision (1972). It is concluded that laws governing involuntary commitment and treatment need to be updated to incorporate the current neurobiological understanding of …
Lawyers, Guns And Money: Content Contextualism And The Cognitive Foundations Of Statutory Interpretation, Gary Blasi
Lawyers, Guns And Money: Content Contextualism And The Cognitive Foundations Of Statutory Interpretation, Gary Blasi
ExpressO
The field of statutory interpretation is one of central importance to both lawyers and judges, perhaps even more central to their daily work than the analysis of appellate opinions. As a field of academic inquiry, however, the field has become rather stagnant and seems now at a stalemate between contending schools of thought, with most siding against the pure forms of textualism sometimes associated with Justice Scalia and arguing for some form of contextualism. What kinds of context should matter is disputed. Thus far, however, scholars have paid remarkably little attention to one crucial contextual factor: What is the statute …