Law and Psychology Commons^™

Michigan's Revised Mental Health Code, William David Serwer

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This note will evaluate the three chapters of the Michigan Code which present the most significant legislative attempts to safeguard the rights of the mentally ill. Chapter Four of the Code extends several traditional due process guarantees to the civil commitment process. By guaranteeing the right to adequate notice, the right to be present at the hearing, the right to be represented by counsel, and the right to notice of trial by jury, the Code offers better protection from unwarranted commitment. However, due to the difficulty of defining mental illness and accurately identifying those in need of treatment, the possibility …

Uncovering "Nondiscernible" Differences: Empirical Research And The Jury-Size Cases, Richard O. Lempert

Michigan Law Review

My point is not that verdict differences associated with jury size cannot be revealed through careful empirical investigation. Indeed, at several places in this article I will suggest research strategies likely to reveal such differences. Rather, it is that typical strategies of legal-impact research, such as those utilized in the Colgrove real-world studies, are unlikely to uncover differences associated with jury size however well they control for those plausible rival hypotheses that form the usual threats to the validity of impact research. The reason lies in the unamenability of the jury-size problem to the usual techniques of aggregate data analysis.

On The Voluntary Admission Of Minors, Louis Lessem

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The past several years have been witness to dramatic changes in both the theory and practice of civil commitment. In the law, this development has taken the form of increased concern for the protection of the personal liberties of the mentally ill while among members of the medical profession it has been experienced as a part of the process of opening up the back wards. Legislatures in many states have responded by revising their mental health statutes to establish more rigorous standards for commitment, periodic review of the status of committed patients, and better procedural safeguards throughout the commitment process. …

A Jury Experiment Reanalyzed, Shari Seidman Diamond

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Researchers in the behavioral sciences have watched with some pride as the courts have given increased attention to social science studies. Judicial interest in empirical studies is a desirable development but one not quite free of danger. The courts are not yet fully accustomed to dealing critically with such evidence. The United States Supreme Court ruled recently, in Colgrove v. Battin, that six-member juries in civil cases meet the seventh amendment requirement of trial by jury. This decision was not surprising in light of Williams v. Florida, in which the Court ruled that six jurors were sufficient to …

Discovery And Presentation Of Evidence In Adversary And Nonadversary Proceedings, E. Allan Lind, John Thibaut, Laurens Walker

Michigan Law Review

In order to evaluate fully the advantage claimed for the adversary model we sought to add a third element that would test the hypothesis under a variety of conditions. The degree to which the evidence discovered in a case favors one party at the expense of another appeared to meet this criterion. This fact-distribution element is a pervasive condition of legal conflict resolution that, intuition suggests, may significantly influence information search and transmission. Further, this variable could be easily and accurately controlled by regulating the flow of favorable information acquired by the subjects during the experiment.

The remainder of this …

Ehrenzweig: Psychoanalytic Jurisprudence, Edgar Bodenheimer

Michigan Law Review

A Book Review of Psychoanalytic Jurisprudence by Albert A. Ehrenzweig

Police Initiated Emergency Psychiatric Detention In Michigan, Mark F. Mehlman

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

While performing his duties a police officer may frequently be confronted with the behavior of an individual which threatens or has resulted in self-inflicted injury, or which poses an imminent threat to the safety of others. Under such circumstances an officer may determine that criminal arrest is inappropriate but that some form of restraint is necessary. Michigan has provided an alternative course of action by authorizing temporary emergency psychiatric detention of an individual whom a police officer deems to be "mentally ill and manifesting homicidal or other dangerous tendencies."

Alternatives To Civil Commitment Of The Mentally Ill: Practical Guides And Constitutional Imperatives, David L. Chambers

Articles

In 1930, Ford sold Fords only in black and states offered treatment for mental illness only in public mental hospitals. Today, new views of mental health care and mental health problems have begotten a galaxy of new treatment settings. Few cities can boast community-based programs sufficient to meet their needs, but almost all cities of any size rely increasingly on outpatient programs. The large public mental hospitals still stand, of course. Indeed, every year more people enter public hospitals than entered the year before. Over 400,000 Americans were admitted as inpatients to state and county mental hospitals last year.1 Partly …

Mental Illness And Criminal Commitment In Michigan, Grant H. Morris

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This article concentrates on one vital issue: to what extent are differences in treatment justified because of a mentally ill person's "criminal" involvement. While the article is primarily concerned with Michigan institutions and Michigan statutes, the discussion and the solutions proposed are in many respects applicable to all states of the Union. Not only must all states reevaluate their policies toward criminal commitment of the mentally ill in light of ever-changing medical and penal theory, but they must also consider the developing constitutional concepts in this area. These constitutional issues are raised here only to the extent necessary to alert …

The Language Of Involuntary Mental Hospitalization: A Study In Sound And Fury, Steven H. Levinson

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Involuntary civil commitment is the business of hospitalizing and treating, without their consent, persons whom a court, with the aid of professional diagnosticians, determines to be psychologically disturbed or mentally ill. The purpose of the present study will be to demonstrate that the medical diagnoses of mental illness which justify involuntary civil commitment are achieved on the basis of at least unreliable and at worst invalid sets of diagnostic categories and assessments. For the purpose of determining the reliability of these diagnostic findings, the author selected a representative sample of the involuntary mental hospitalization proceedings of the Wayne County Probate …

Watson: Psychiatry For Lawyers, Herbert C. Modlin M.D.

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Psychiatry for Lawyers by Andrew S. Watson

Driver Behavior And Legal Sanctions: A Study Of Deterrence, Roger C. Cramton

Michigan Law Review

This Article considers first the general understanding of legal scholars and criminologists regarding the deterrent effect of legal sanctions; a second part summarizes current knowledge concerning the effects of legal sanctions in controlling driver behavior; and a concluding section evaluates briefly the methods available for the development of needed new knowledge.

Disposition Of The Irresponsible: Protection Following Commitment, Travis H. Lewin

Michigan Law Review

Each year more of our fellow citizens are involuntarily committed to a mental institution of one sort or another than are incarcerated for the commission of a crime. To those committed, the walls and barred windows of the hospital, as well as the treatment and mode of living, are probably not significantly different from those of a prison. This is particularly the case with those confined for treatment by court order or by some special statutory procedure following acquittal of a crime on grounds of insanity. Yet these mentally ill, even after perpetrating what would otherwise have been a criminal …

Review Of Better Settlements -- Through Leverage, By P. J. Hermann. , James J. White

Reviews

Who ever learned to negotiate from a book? Probably no one, and one who seeks the kernel of wisdom which will make him an expert negotiator, who seeks the password for admittance to the negotiator's sanctum sanctorum-that person will hunt in vain through the pages of Mr. Hermann's book. I do not mean to suggest either that Mr. Hermann has withheld something in his power to reveal or that he has explicitly promised such a revelation. Rather, I suggest a flaw either in our perception and analysis or in our verbal skills. One of them, probably our perception and analysis, …

Szasz: Psychiatric Justice, Emanuel Tanay

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Psychiatric Justice by Thomas Szasz

Schur: Crimes Without Victims: Deviant Behavior And Public Policy, Mauris M. Platkin M.D.

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Crimes Without Victims: Deviant Behavior and Public Policy by Edwin M. Schur

Hermann: Better Settlements--Through Leverage, James J. White

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Better Settlements--Through Leverage by Philip J. Hermann

The Psychiatrist As An Expert Witness: Some Ruminations And Speculations, Bernard L. Diamond, David W. Louisell

Michigan Law Review

Consider the difference between the expert testimony of an orthopedic surgeon in a personal injury suit and the testimony of a psychiatrist in a murder trial in which some elements of the mens rea are at issue. In both instances an expert opinion is received in evidence, providing the trier of fact with technical, specialized information which must, or should, be available in order to permit a rational decision-making process. Well-established rules govern the nature of expert evidence and its mode of presentation. In legal theory, the orthopedic surgeon and the psychiatrist are both experts-physicians-who perform comparable functions in the …

Legislation Requiring Child To Support Mother In State Asylum Is A Denial Of Equal Protection-Department Of Mental Hygiene V. Kirchner, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

The California Department of Mental Hygiene brought suit under section 6650 of the state's Welfare and Institutions Code, a provision commonly known as a relative support statute, against the administratrix to recover 7,500 dollars from the intestate's estate. This amount represented the cost of food, housing, and treatment received by intestate's mother in a state mental hospital during the four years she had been confined there following a civil sanity hearing. Plaintiff was granted judgment on the pleadings. On appeal to the California Supreme Court, held, reversed. Since mental hospitals serve a proper public function, it is a denial …

Prejudicial In11uence On Jury Of Newspaper Published During Trial-People V. Purvis, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Defendant had been paroled after serving four years of a sentence for second degree murder. While on parole, he was tried for another homicide and convicted of murder in the first degree. In separate penalty trials, juries had twice assessed the death sentence, which, on both occasions, had been set aside by the reviewing court. During the third trial, the Sunday newspaper in the local county published a front-page article attacking the leniency of the parole system, attributing the area's high crime rate partly to the recidivist tendencies of parolees, and quoting the county sheriff's opinion that defendant should be …

Courts-Scope Of Authority-Sterilization Of Mental Defectives, William R. Warnock

Michigan Law Review

Respondent, age nineteen, appeared before the probate court of Muskingum County, Ohio, upon an affidavit filed by her mother alleging the child to be feeble-minded and in need of medical treatment. Results of psychological tests were presented at the hearing, revealing that respondent had an intelligence quotient of thirty-six and was therefore a feeble-minded person within the statutory definition. Respondent had had one illegitimate child, for whom she was unable to provide even rudimentary care or financial support, and was physically capable of bearing more children. Taking judicial notice that the state mental hospitals were then overcrowded and unable to …

Legal, Medical And Psychiatric Considerations In The Control Of Prostitution, B. J. George Jr.

Michigan Law Review

In common with other nations of the world the United States today as in the past is faced with the problem of controlling prostitution, particularly in urban areas. At one time or another states and cities in the United States have experimented with the classic methods of controlling prostitution: reglementation, segregation and repression. Reglementation of individual houses or prostitutes has never been carried out on a statewide basis in any state in the United States, though one can find instances in certain large cities in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in which city ordinances or de facto police regulations …

Criminal Law - Insane Persons - Competency To Stand Trial, John H. Hess M.D., Henry B. Pearsall S.Ed., Donald A. Slichter S.Ed., Herbert E. Thomas M.D.

Michigan Law Review

Mental unsoundness in a person accused of a crime raises two distinct legal questions. One is the question of the individual's responsibility for his behavior and the other is the question of the individual's competency to enter into the legal procedures of trial or punishment. In recent years considerable attention has been given to matters of responsibility, but relatively little attention has been paid to the problem of incompetency and especially to the consequences of incompetency proceedings. In order to analyze and evaluate the operations of the Michigan law in the area of incompetency to stand trial, two psychiatrists joined …

Criminal Law - Insane Persons - Influence Of Mental Illness On The Parole Return Process, David G. Davies S.Ed., John H. Hess M.D.

Michigan Law Review

Defendants in the criminal process are divided into rigidly exclusive categories of mental health. The competent to stand trial are first separated from the incompetent. Then the competent are divided on the basis of their mental state at the time of their acts between the "sane" and the "insane." As long as these rigid categories are administered in an adversary trial system, some misdirection of victims of serious mental illness into the penal system is almost inevitable. Even where mental illness might otherwise prevent conviction, those accused of non-capital felonies are not likely to raise the question, and few courts …

Group For The Advancement Of Psychiatry: Confidentiality And Privileged Communication In The Practice Of Psychiatry, Henry Weihofen

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Confidentiality and Privileged Communication in the Practice of Psychiatry. Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry.

Greenberg: Race Relations And American Law, Spencer L. Kimball

Michigan Law Review

A Review of RACE RELATIONS AND AMERICAN LAW. By Jack Greenberg.

Commitment Of The Mentally Ill: Problems Of Law And Policy, Hugh Alan Ross

Michigan Law Review

A number of recent events makes it timely to reconsider certain aspects of the relation between psychiatry and the law. In the past decade, both the public and the legal profession have been increasingly concerned with the impact of mental illness on the law. In 1952, an outstanding text, Psychiatry and The Law, was published as the joint effort of a lawyer and a psychiatrist. Two years later the Durham case laid down a new test of insanity in criminal cases, rejecting the M'Naghten rule. Interest in the case resulted in a host of law review articles, symposiums, and …

Mental Illness And The Law Of Contracts, Robert M. Brucken S.Ed., David L. Genger S.Ed., Denis T. Rice S.Ed., Mark Shaevsky S.Ed., William R. Slye S.Ed., Robert P. Volpe S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

The traditional and most important problem relative to mental illness and the contract is the situation created when mental illness exists at the time of agreement (the problem of contractual capacity). One principal result of mental illness at this time may be the avoidance of the contract by the mentally ill person. Since case law in this area is extensive, the major portion of the study is concerned with this problem (parts II, III and IV) and the effects of such incapacity throughout the remaining course of the contract. Mental illness occurring after agreement and at the time of performance …

Macdonald: Psychiatry And The Criminal, Raymond L. Carol

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Psychiatry and the Criminal By John M. MacDonald.

Torts - Mental Distress - Recovery Against Original Wrongdoer For Fear Of Cancer Caused By Subsequent Medical Advice, Paul Gerding

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff, suffering from bursitis in the right shoulder, received X-ray treatments from defendant physicians. Subsequent thereto, plaintiff's shoulder began to itch, scab, and blister for several years, a condition diagnosed as chronic radiodermatitis caused by the X-ray therapy. Approximately two years after the treatments, plaintiff was examined by a dermatologist who advised her to have her shoulder checked every six months because the area might become cancerous. Plaintiff then developed a severe "cancerphobia," an apprehension that she would ultimately develop cancer from the radiation burn. Plaintiff brought a malpractice suit against defendant physicians, seeking recovery for the physical injury and …