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Brief Of Amicus Curiae 290 Criminal Law And Mental Health Law Professors In Support Of Petitioner's Request For Reversal And Remand, Kahler V. Kansas, 18-6135 (U.S. June 6, 2019), Paul F. Rothstein

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Amici curiae are a group of philosophically and politically diverse law school professors and scholars in the fields of criminal law and mental health from a variety of disciplines who have been teaching and writing about the insanity defense and related issues throughout their careers. They include the authors of leading criminal law and mental health law treatises and casebooks and numerous important scholarly books and articles.

Amici believe this case raises important questions about principles of criminal responsibility, the integral role of the insanity defense in Anglo-American law, and the inadequacy of the “mens rea alternative” to the traditional …

It Doesn't Pass The Sell Test: Focusing On "The Facts Of The Individual Case" In Involuntary Medication Inquiries, Susan A. Mcmahon

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Criminal defendants who are incompetent to stand trial have a significant liberty interest in refusing the antipsychotic medication that could restore their competency. The Supreme Court cautioned that instances of intrusion upon that right “may be rare,” and, in Sell v. United States, it laid out what it believed to be stringent criteria for when a defendant could be medicated against his will. Yet, since Sell, trial courts have ordered over sixty-three percent of defendants involuntarily medicated. These individuals did not pose a danger to themselves or others, and they were rarely accused of crimes that involved damage …