The Insanity Defense: A Philosophical Analysis, Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham, UK 2021. (original) (raw)
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The insanity defense and the question of human agency
New Ideas in Psychology, 1990
All of the legal citations in this paper refer to documents that should be readily available in any law library. Citations to the Model Penal Code are reported such as "M.P.C. 92.02." This simply refers to section 2.02 of the M.P.C. The entire text of the Model Penal Code mav be found at the end of either of the LaFave texts. Citations such as 33 U.S.C. 5131 I(a) refer to Title 33 of the United States Code Section 131 l(a). Case citations first identify the parties involved in the lawsuit, then provide the volume number, the reporter, and finally the page number. Thus Slewnrt Marhiw Co. I,. Dam, 301 U.S. .54X, 590 (l933), may be located at volume 301 of United States Reports on p. 548, and the specific language of importance is to be found on p. 590.
The Insanity Defense: Nine Myths that Will Not Go Away
2016
Writing about the insanity defense over a quarter of a century ago, the author of this chapter stated: "Until we 'unpack' the empirical and social myths that underlie our misconceptions about the insane and the insanity defense and hold us in a paralytic thrall, we cannot begin to move forward." Some five years later, he began a full-length book on the insanity defense by alleging, "Our insanity defense jurisprudence is incoherent." Five years after that, he concluded that "we as a society remain fixated on the insanity defense as a symbol of all that is wrong with the criminal justice system and as a source of social and political anger." Returning to this issue two years ago, he concluded that "nothing has happened in the intervening decade to lead me to change my mind." The myths have stayed with us, and we willfully blind ourselves to the empirical and behavioral realities.At the roots of this incoherence and fixation is our nation...
Insanity is a legal term denoting that the individual is so confused and deranged as a result of mental illness that he should not be held legally responsible for his actions which otherwise are punishable in law. For such deranged state of mind, mental health professionals use the term "abnormality" instead of insanity; and they use it in a much broader sense than it is used by lawyers and refer to almost anything from simple anxiety to dementia (which is interpreted as synonymous with gross mental deterioration). The medical science relies on the illness perspective, in which the idea is to classify all known mental diseases in a logical and consistent manner. The law is concerned with the question of liability rather than the type of distress a person is in. The prevailing test of law is not "Is this a paranoid or mania?" but, "Did the accused know from wrong?"
Defense Of Insanity: A Loophole In Criminal Justice System
Anu Books, 2022
It's a topic that whenever tried to put some light on it, is always hushed and put under the carpet which needs serious attention and discussions by the judiciary of India. In a spiritual country like India, there are some things that are unsaid, untold, and unexplainable which are beyond the scope of science. Science names that as "paranormal activities" but, still there is not enough explanation for such activities. People using such spiritual sentiments, take advantage of this fact and hush their wrongful acts under the carpet of blood in the name of spirituality. Though the word "insanity" as a mental disorder is nowhere recognized in the provisions of the Indian penal code, of 1860, the Indian judiciary and lawmakers have taken various keen steps and measures to be able to highlight the word "unsound mind" and bring it under the scope and shadow of Section84 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860. The particular section says that people being of unsound mind at the time of the commission of the wrongful act who are unable to differentiate between the right and the wrong would get an advantage of law as they do not possess the right amount of men's rea to commit such actus reus. The judiciary of India and the Indian penal code, of 1860 particularly deal with legal unsoundness of mind and not medical. With the immense growth in science and law, some serious changes and amendments shall be made so that the undue advantage of the particular concept in question wouldn't be made. Our judiciary demands the evidence to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, which becomes a bit difficult to be proved in some cases as the present matter is concerned.
Myths, realities, and the political world: The anthropology of insanity defense attitudes
The Bulletin of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law
The author presents the case that society's efforts to understand the insanity defense and insanity-pleading defendants are doomed to intellectual, moral, and political gridlock unless we are willing to take a fresh look at the doctrine through a series of filters-empirical research, scientific discovery, moral philosophy, cognitive and moral psychology, and sociology-in an effort to confront the single most important (but rarely asked) question: why do we feel the way we do about "these people" (insanity pleaders)? He examines this question finally through a model of structural anthropology and concludes that until we come to grips with the extent to which ours is a "culture of punishment," we can make no headway in solving the insanity defense dilemma.