Insanity Is an Illness: Positive Disintegration and the Plea of Criminal Insanity (From EuroCriminology, Volume 10, P 159-183, 1996, Brunon Holyst, ed. - See NCJ-171167)

• NCJ Number: 171178
• Author(s): C B Gray
• Date Published: 1996
• Length: 25 pages
• Sale Source: Criminal Justice Press/Willow Tree Press
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: Poland

Annotation

This article discusses the concept of criminal insanity and the interworking of the disciplines of medicine, specifically psychiatry, and law.

Abstract

Legal tests of criminal insanity include: (1) "right-wrong": defendants are not criminally responsible if they did not know right from wrong in committing a criminal act; (2) "irresistible impulse": defendants are not criminally responsible if they performed a criminal act under an irresistible impulse; (3) "product test": defendants are not criminally responsible if the act was the product of a mental disease; and (4) "conformity test": defendants are not criminally responsible if they were without the capacity to conform their conduct to the requirements of law at the time of their acts. The article discusses in detail each of these defenses as well as other alternatives adopted by various countries; the Model Penal Code formulation; and definitions and interpretations of relevant legal and medical terminology, concepts and criteria. Notes